The Past and Present Together
by Pagesurfer
Summary: HEY ITS ELLA, I just adopted another story. You guys will love it! It's filled with romance, heartbreaking news, tests of friendship, and tempertantrums. I do NOT own anything RM does God I wish I was her!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey Everyone Ella is BACK, anyway I know I just finished my story that I adopted from LyssaL97 "Bella's Gone," and I know I just started my own story the sequel to "Bella's Gone," "Bella's Back," (OMG that was a lot of quotes LOL.) Anyway I know I am working on "Bella's Back" and I promise that story will be finished but in the mean time I just adopted **_**another**_** story from ****this story is called…. The Past and the Present Together. So I you are reading this story because you wanted to see the end of it am she told you I was writing WELCOME. If you are here because you are one of the people that read Bella's Gone, HI AGAIN. If you are just someone who found me searching for a Vampire Academy Fanfic ALOHA. So here is the story ****READ**** the AN so you know who is wrote which part of the story. (This part is from ****) ****ENJOY! **

"So what you're telling me is that you dragged me all the way from Spain to here to read a _book?" _Rose Hathaway asks Alberta as she stands in the middle of the room with her hands in her hips. This gesture reminds Alberta of the little Rose, and how grown up she is. Alberta sighs exasperated, the rest of the group which includes: Adrian, Jill, Mia, Eddie, Christian, Lissa, Dimitri, the Belikov's, Sydney, Oksana, Mark, Sonya, Mikhail, Abe, and Janine. Along with some new people: David Ivashkov, Alisa Dragomir, and Madeleine Rossi.

Alisa Dragomir is the daughter of Joshua Dragomir, Eric Dragomir's unknown brother. David Ivashkov is her cousin, and boyfriend of Madeleine. Madeleine is Alisa's guardian and Adrian's half sister. Her mother had an affair with his father. She is Spanish. Alisa is dating Adrian, and is Rose's new friend.

"Yes, Rose. But this isn't _any _book." Rose scoffs, it looks like any other book to her.

"Oh really. What's so special about it? Fairies going to come out or something?" she says with sarcasm, trying to avoid the eyes of those she left behind. "Rose, this a book telling about your return with Lissa to Vladimir's up until Victor Dashkov." Abe tells her. 'Shit' is pretty much the only thing she can say.

When she had come in everyone had been surprised, a few had mumbled a few 'Hello's' though no one really came into contact with her, only Adrian had, but well she saw him a lot considering he was dating Alisa.

"Ok, so are we going to read, or stand here. I don't want to be here, you don't want me here. The sooner it's done the better." No body contradicted her though, she got the book with her picture and begun reading before anyone said anything.

"_One_

_I FELT HER FEAR BEFORE I heard her screams_.

~"Lissa?" asked Adrian. Rose only gave a nod before she started reading.~

_Her nightmare pulsed into me, shaking me out of my own dream, which had had something to do with a beach and some hot guy rubbing suntan oil on me. _

~Everyone laughed, leave it to Rose to dream about something like that.~

_Images-hers, not mine- tumbled through my mind: fire and blood, the smell of smoke, the twisted metal of a car. The pictures wrapped around me, suffocating me, until some rational part of my brain reminded me that this wasn't my dream. _

~Those who didn't know about the bond raised an eyebrow, but no one said anything. 'The Bond' Rose realized was becoming…. Alive. Right after she left she had built up a strong wall, not once had she checked upon Lissa. But now having her only a few feet away the bond was waking up and Rose didn't like it.~

"_I woke up, strands of long, dark hair sticking to my forehead. _

_Lissa lay in her bed, thrashing and screaming. I bolted out of mine, quickly crossing the few feet that separated us. _

_"Liss, " I said, shaking her. "Liss, wake up. "_

_Her screams dropped off, replaced by soft whimpers. "Andre, " she moaned. "Oh God. "_

_I helped her sit up. "Liss, you aren't there anymore. Wake up." After a few moments, her eyes fluttered open, and in the dim lighting, I could see a flicker of consciousness start to take over. Her frantic breathing slowed, and she leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder. I put an arm around her and ran a hand over her hair. _

_"It's okay, " I told her gently. "Everything's okay. "_

~No one had really been lucky enough to see this side of Rose and were surprised but Dimitri Belikov wasn't. She'd shown him that side before, and instantly felt guilty for using her like that. Lissa sensing his distress put her hand over his and squeezed it. Not knowing Rose had seen, she shook her head, determined not to let it get to her and resumed reading.~

?_ "I had that dream. "_

_"Yeah. I know. "_

_We sat like that for several minutes, not saying anything else. When I felt her emotions calm down, I leaned over to the nightstand between our beds and turned on the lamp. It glowed dimly, but neither of us really needed much to see by. Attracted by the light, our housemate's cat, Oscar, leapt up onto the sill of the open window He gave me a wide berth-animals don't like Dhampirs, for whatever reason-but jumped onto the bed and rubbed his head against Lissa, purring softly. Animals didn't have a problem with Moroi, and they all loved Lissa in particular. Smiling, she scratched his chin, and I felt her calm further. When did we last do a feeding? _"

~"Feeding?" Janine asked her daughter but Rose only shrugged, she wasn't about to go and talked to anyone.~

_I asked, studying her face. Her fair skin was paler than usual. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and there was an air of frailty about her. School had been hectic this week, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd given her blood. "It's been like... More than two days, hasn't it? Three? Why didn't you say anything?"_

_She shrugged and wouldn't meet my eyes. "You were busy. I didn't want to-"_

_"Screw that, " I said, shifting into a better position. No wonder she seemed so weak. Oscar, not wanting me any closer, leapt down and returned to the window, where he could watch at a safe distance. "Come on. Let's do this. "_

_"Rose-"_

_"Come on. It'll make you feel better. "_

_I tilted my head and tossed my hair back, baring my neck. I saw her hesitate, but the sight of my neck and what it offered proved too powerful. A hungry expression crossed her face, and her lips parted slightly, exposing the fangs she normally kept hidden while living among humans. Those fangs contrasted oddly with the rest of her features. With her pretty face and pale blond hair, she looked more like an angel than a vampire. As her teeth neared my bare skin, I felt my heart race with a mix of fear and anticipation. I always hated feeling the latter, but it was nothing I could help, a weakness I couldn't shake. _

_Her fangs bit into me, hard, and I cried out at the brief flare of pain. Then it faded, replaced by a wonderful, golden joy that spread through my body. It was better than any of the times I'd been drunk or high. Better than sex-or so I imagined, since I'd never done it. _

"You were a virgin?" Eddie asks in disbelieve.

"Yes Castile I was a virgin, can't believe you actually believed the rumors." He didn't say anything else.

"Then who was your first?" Tasha asked. She was starting to annoy Rose. She turned to look at her.

"None of your business, but you know him." she had sais the last part looking at Dimitri. 'Take that' she thought to herself before she started reading again.

_It was a blanket of pure, refined pleasure, wrapping me up and promising everything would be right in the world. On and on it went. The chemicals in her saliva triggered an endorphin rush, and I lost track of the world, lost track of who I was. _

_Then, regretfully, it was over. It had taken less than a minute. _

Everyone felt uncomfortable reading about this, but Alisa knew that what Rose had done was right. She put a hand over hers in a comforting manner. Especially Dimitri, after Russia. Rose looked up and met his eyes. The electricity was still there, but he looked away. "Feeling guilty are we Comrade?" she said with sarcasm. Everyone heard and turned around to look at them wondering why should he feel guilty? "Don't Rose," was all he said. "Don't what _Guardian Belikov_? She tried to sound innocent but wasn't very successful. Yeva knew where this was going and motioned for rose to continue but not before receiving a few disgusted looks from the Belikov's sisters. Rose wondered what was wrong, but decided it wasn't the right time.

"_She pulled back, wiping her hand across her lips as she studied me. " You okay?"_

_"I... Yeah. "I lay back on the bed, dizzy from the blood loss. "I just need to sleep it off. I'm fine. "_

_Her pale, jade-green eyes watched me with concern. She stood up. "I'm going to get you something to eat. "_

_My protests came awkwardly to my lips, and she left before I could get out a sentence. The buzz from her bite had lessened as soon as she broke the connection, but some of it still lingered in my veins, and I felt a goofy smile cross my lips. Turning my head, I glanced up at Oscar, still sitting in the window. _

_"You don't know what you're missing, " I told him. _

~"Taling to animals now, are we Rose?" Maddie asked her. Leave it to her to tease Rose right now. Rose forgetting who was in the room stuck out her tongue at her. But soon enough she remembered and looked back at the book. ~

_His attention was on something outside. Hunkering down into a crouch, he puffed out his jet-black fur. His tail started twitching. My smile faded, and I forced myself to sit up. The world spun, and I waited for it to right itself before trying to stand. When I managed it, the dizziness set in again and this time refused to leave. Still, I felt okay enough to stumble to the window and peer out with Oscar. He eyed me warily, scooted over a little, and then returned to whatever had held his attention. _

_A warm breeze-unseasonably warm for a Portland fall- played with my hair as I leaned out. The street was dark and relatively quiet. It was three in the morning, just about the only time a college campus settled down, at least somewhat. The house in which we'd rented a room for the past eight months sat on a residential street with old, mismatched houses. Across the road, a streetlight flickered, nearly ready to burn out. It still cast enough light for me to make out the shapes of cars and buildings. In our own yard, I could see the silhouettes of trees and bushes. _

_And a man watching me. _

"Who is it?" Tasha asked. Rose looked up at her.

"We'd found out had you not interrupted." Everyone could tell she said it with venom, they were confused, except of course those who knew. ~

_I jerked back in surprise. A figure stood by a tree in the yard, about thirty feet away, where he could easily see through the window. He was close enough that I probably could have thrown something and hit him. He was certainly close enough that he could have seen what Lissa and I had just done. The shadows covered him so well that even with my heightened sight, I couldn't make out any of his features, save for his height. He was tall. Really tall._

Dimitri couldn't help but give a small chuckle at his description. Everyone else was amused.

_He stood there for just a moment, barely discernible, and then stepped back, disappearing into the shadows cast by the trees on the far side of the yard. I was pretty sure I saw someone else move nearby and join him before the blackness swallowed them both. _

_Whoever these figures were, Oscar didn't like them. Not counting me, he usually got along with most people, growing upset only when someone posed an immediate danger. The guy outside hadn't done anything threatening to Oscar, but the cat had sensed something, something that put him on edge. _

_Something similar to what he always sensed in me. _

"Dhampir?" Sonya Belikov asked. But no one answered her.

_Icy fear raced through me, almost-but not quite-eradicating the lovely bliss of Lissa's bite. Backing up from the window, I jerked on a pair of jeans that I found on the floor, nearly falling over in the process. Once they were on, I grabbed my coat and Lissa's, along with our wallets. Shoving my feet into the first shoes I saw, I headed out the door._

"Were you naked Little Dhampir?" Adrian just had to ask. Alisa smacked him, and Rose laughed at him.

_Downstairs, I found her in the cramped kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator. One of our housemates, Jeremy, sat at the table, hand on his forehead as he stared sadly at a calculus book. Lissa regarded me with surprise. _

_"You shouldn't be up. "_

_"We have to go. Now. "_

_Her eyes widened, and then a moment later, understanding clicked in. "Are you... Really?Are you sure?"_

_I nodded. I couldn't explain how I knew for sure. I just did. _

_Jeremy watched us curiously. "What's wrong?"_

_An idea came to mind. "Liss, get his car keys. "_

_He looked back and forth between us. "What are you-"_

_Lissa unhesitatingly walked over to him. Her fear poured into me through our psychic bond, but there was something else too: her complete faith that I would take care of everything, that we would be safe. Like always, I hoped I was worthy of that kind of trust. _

~Lissa looked up to see Rose. There hadn't been anything romantic between her and Dimitri. Just motherly love, but she had lost a friend. She had always believed Rose was worthy of her trust. She had been beyond amazing.

_She smiled broadly and gazed directly into his eyes. For a moment, Jeremy just stared, still confused, and then I saw the thrall seize him. His eyes glazed over, and he regarded her adoringly. _

_"We need to borrow your car, " she said in a gentle voice. "Where are your keys?"_

~"Janine looked at both girls with admonishing eyes. Lissa looked down, but Rose didn't. she had done everything to protect her, and had succeeded. ~

_He smiled, and I shivered. I had a high resistance to compulsion, but I could still feel its effects when it was directed at another person. That, and I'd been taught my entire life that using it was wrong. Reaching into his pocket, Jeremy handed over a set of keys hanging on a large red key chain_.

~"Hypocrisy!" Adrian said in a sing song voice. Rose threw a book at him.

_"Thank you, " said Lissa. "And where is it parked?"_

_"Down the street, " he said dreamily. "At the corner. By Brown. " Four blocks away. _

_"Thank you, " she repeated, backing up. "As soon as we leave, I want you to go back to studying. Forget you ever saw us tonight._

_He nodded obligingly. I got the impression he would have walked off a cliff for her right then if she'd asked. All humans were susceptible to compulsion, but Jeremy appeared weaker than most. That came in handy right now. _

_"Come on, " I told her. "We've got to move. "_

_We stepped outside, heading toward the corner he'd named. I was still dizzy from the bite and kept stumbling, unable to move as quickly as I wanted. Lissa had to catch hold of me a few times to stop me from falling. All the time, that anxiety rushed into me from her mind. I tried my best to ignore it; I had my own fears to deal with. _

_"Rose... What are we going to do if they catch us?" she whispered. _

_"They won't, " I said fiercely. "I won't let them. "_

_"But if they've found us-" _

"_They found us before. They didn't catch us then. We'll just drive over to the train station and go toL. A. They'll lose the trail. "_

'I can't believe they didn't find you in two years," Janine amused out loud. Rose shrugged, she didn't know either. Abe was proud of her, although it was Lissa's compulsion, but still.

_I made it sound simple. I always did, even though there was nothing simple about being on the run from the people we'd grown up with. We'd been doing it for two years, hiding wherever we could and just trying to finish high school. Our senior year had just started, and living on a college campus had seemed safe. We were so close to freedom. _

"But we didn't make it," Lissa stated the obvious. Rose nodded her head grimly. Both girls always wondered what would have happened had they not been caught. Probably still in the run but still friends, they both thought.

_She said nothing more, and I felt her faith in me surge up once more. This was the way it had always been between us. I was the one who took action, who made sure things happened- sometimes recklessly so. She was the more reasonable one, the one who thought things out and researched them extensively before acting. Both styles had their uses, but at the moment, recklessness was called for. We didn't have time to hesitate. _

"First lesson, 'never hesitate'" both Dimitri and Rose said out loud. They turned around to look at each other. When Rose had thought that all those years ago she hadn't been talking about Strigoi, but it had come to her head. Christian looked between them and for the first time noticed the way they looked at each other and the _tension_ in the room. He didn't say anything though. He decided to talk to Lissa about it later.

_Lissa and I had been best friends ever since kindergarten, when our teacher had paired us together for writing lessons. Forcing five-year-olds to spell Vasilisa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway was beyond cruel, and we'd-or rather, I'd -responded appropriately. I'd chucked my book at our teacher and called her a fascist bastard. I hadn't known what those words meant, but I'd known how to hit a moving target._

Everyone laughed, Janine frowned. She had received a letter concerning this.

"Who would have thought this is what made you friends," Mia said in between laughs.

"That's a true Rose way though," Jill said in between giggles.

"Girls," Rose and Maddie said before erupting into laughter. They all calmed down and begun once again.

_Lissa and I had been inseparable ever since. _

_"Do you hear that?" she asked suddenly. _

_It took me a few seconds to pick up what her sharper senses already had. Footsteps, moving fast. I grimaced. We had two more blocks to go. _

_"We've got to run for it, " I said, catching hold of her_

_"But you can't-"_

_"Run. "_

_It took every ounce of my willpower not to pass out on the sidewalk. My body didn't want to run after losing blood or while still metabolizing the effects of her saliva. But I ordered my muscles to stop their bitching and clung to Lissa as our feet pounded against the concrete. Normally I could have outrun her without any extra effort-particularly since she was barefoot-but tonight, she was all that held me upright. _

Lissa gave Rose a small smile which she returned.

_The pursuing footsteps grew louder, closer. Black stars danced before my eyes. Ahead of us, I could make out Jeremy's green Honda. Oh God, if we could just make it-_

_Ten feet from the car, a man stepped directly into our path. We came to a screeching halt, and I jerked Lissa back by her arm. It was him, the guy I'd seen across the street watching me. He was older than us, maybe mid-twenties, and as tall as I'd figured, probably six-six or six-seven. And under different circumstances-say, when he wasn't holding up our desperate escape-I would have thought he was hot. Shoulder-length brown hair, tied back in a short ponytail. Dark brown eyes. A long brown coat-a duster, I thought it was called. _

"How did you know what it was called?" Adrian asked her but she only shrugged. She didn't remember.

_But his hotness was irrelevant now. He was only an obstacle keeping Lissa and me away from the car and our freedom. The footsteps behind us slowed, and I knew our pursuers had caught up. Off to the sides, I detected more movement, more people closing in. God._

"I thought you didn't believe in God?" Abe asked her. She only sighed.

_They'd sent almost a dozen guardians to retrieve us. I couldn't believe it. The queen herself didn't travel with that many. _

_Panicked and not entirely in control of my higher reasoning, I acted out of instinct. I pressed up to Lissa, keeping her behind me and away from the man who appeared to be the leader._

_"Leave her alone, " I growled. "Don't touch her. "_

_His face was unreadable, but he held out his hands in what was apparently supposed to be some sort of calming gesture, like I was a rabid animal he was planning to sedate. _

_"I'm not going to-"_

_He took a step forward. Too close. _

_I attacked him, leaping out in an offensive maneuver training. The move was stupid, another reaction born of instinct and fear. And it was hopeless. He was a skilled guardian, not a novice who hadn't finished his training. He also wasn't weak and on the verge of passing out. _

_And man, was he fast. I'd forgotten how fast guardians could be, how they could move and strike like cobras. He knocked me off as though brushing away a fly, and his hands slammed into me and sent me backwards. I don't think he meant to strike that hard-probably just intended to keep me away-but my lack of coordination interfered with my ability to respond. Unable to catch my footing, I started to fall, heading straight toward the sidewalk at a twisted angle, hip-first. It was going to hurt. Alot. _

"ouch," everyone said instantly, both Lissa and Rose laughed.

_Only it didn't. _

_Just as quickly as he'd blocked me, the man reached out and caught my arm, keeping me upright. When I'd steadied myself, I noticed he was staring at me-or, more precisely, at my neck. Still disoriented, I didn't get it right away. Then, slowly, my free hand reached up to the side of my throat and lightly touched the wound Lissa had made earlier. When I pulled my fingers back, I saw slick, dark blood on my skin. Embarrassed, I shook my hair so that it fell forward around my face. My hair was thick and long and completely covered my neck. I'd grown it out for precisely this reason._

_The guy's dark eyes lingered on the now-covered bite a moment longer and then met mine. I returned his look defiantly and quickly jerked out of his hold. He let me go, though I knew he could have restrained me all night if he'd wanted. _

Rose blushed a bright red, everyone including Dimitri laughed at her expense. "Rose, Rose, Rose," her mother and Alberta said. Which made everyone else laugh again.

_Fighting the nauseating dizziness, I backed toward Lissa again, bracing myself for another attack. Suddenly, her hand caught hold of mine. "Rose, " she said quietly. "Don't. "_

_Her words had no effect on me at first, but calming thoughts gradually began to settle in my mind, coming across through the bond. It wasn't exactly compulsion-she wouldn't use that on me-but it was effectual, as was the fact that we were hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed. Even I knew struggling would be pointless. The tension left my body, and I sagged in defeat. _

"Defeated? Are you sure we're talking about the same Rose here?" Maddie teased Rose. Rose wanted to smack her, they were too much alike. Sure Maddie had long black hair and piercing blue eyes, but they acted the same. Everyone else laughed. David spoke for the first time. "I can't believe the great Rose Hathaway didn't fight." Rose rolled her eyes.

"I didn't have a choice. I wasn't trained and I was weak. Im not _that_ stupid. Even I know my limits." That was a lie and she knew it. She had gone beyond her limits for Dimitri. Alisa couldn't her self and said, "Liar you went beyond your limits for Di-" she didn't have a chance to finish because Rose begun reading.

But that one sentence left pretty much everyone wondering who Alisa had been talking about, especially Abe and Janine. But Dimitri knew and he didn't dare look up to meet the eyes of Yeva. He was ashamed of what he had done and he just hoped Rose would forgive him for lying to his family about her.

"_Sensing my resignation, the man stepped forward, turning his attention to Lissa. His face was calm. He swept her a bow and managed to look graceful doing it, which surprised me considering his height. "My name is Dimitri Belikov," he said. I could hear a faint Russian accent. "I've come to take you back to St. Vladimir's Academy, Princess."_

"Always the gentleman," Rose said again with sarcasm. Dimitri was getting tired. She was testing his temper, they both knew. Tasha put a hand on him reassuringly. That's all it took for him to calm down and not snap at Rose. Rose was hurt, once it had been her touch that could calm him down. But not anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

They decided to continue reading since they had plenty of time. Dimitri went next, and when Rose handed him the book their hands touched. A tiny fleck of electricity was there, not as much as there once used to, and the thought saddened Rose. She grimaced and sat back down next to David.

David put a hand over hers and she thought again of how lucky she had become. Her charge was a nice, shy, kind Moroi. She had Alisa, Maddie who annoyed each other and Adrian, of course.

Dimitri thought again of Rose and how much she had changed. Her eyes used to be filled of joy and life, but now they were empty and sad. They held pain and anger. And he knew he was the cause of it, another reason to stay away from her and go ahead and marry Tasha. He cleared his head and voice and began reading.

"_TWO _

_MY HATRED NOTWITHSTANDING, _

"Hatred?" Dimitri asked Rose. She looked up to meet his eyes and with the coldest voice she had told him, "No, I thought that was hatred. But trust me it wasn't I know what hatred is now," she eyed Tasha's hand in in his arm possessively. He frowned. That was not what he had expected. In fact no one did. The coldness in her voice was something they'd never heard before, and in fact wished to never be object of that hatred.

Yeva knew Rose was lying. She knew Rose was still in love with Dimitri, she always would. She just hoped Dimitri would come clean about the lie he had told his whole family. Yeva glared at her grandson as he glanced up and glanced down ashamed and resumed:

"_I HAD to admit Dimitri Beli-whatever was pretty smart. After they'd carted us off to the airport to and onto the Academy's private jet, he'd taken one look at the two of us whispering and ordered us separated. _

"Smart," Janine told Dimitri. She was now curious as to why Rose hated Dimitri so much. She wanted to ask but knew she wouldn't receive an answer.

_"Don't let them talk to each other, " he warned the guardian who escorted me to the back of the plane. "Five minutes together, and they'll come up with an escape plan. "_

_I shot him a haughty look and stormed off down the aisle. Never mind the fact wehad been planning escape. _

Everyone gave a small chuckle. "What were you going to do jump off the plane?" Vikktoria asked to no one in particular. But both Lissa and Rose shrugged. That had been an idea after all….

_As it was, things didn't look good for our heroes-or heroines, rather. Once we were in the air, our odds of escape dropped further. Even supposing a miracle occurred and I did manage to take out all ten guardians, we'd sort of have a problem in getting off the plane. I figured they might have parachutes aboard somewhere, but in the unlikely event I'd be able to operate one, there was still that little issue of survival, seeing as we'd probably land somewhere in the Rocky Mountains._

"Seriously?" Alberta asked Rose, while everyone laughed. Vikktoria's question or more like hypotheses had been right.

_No, we weren't getting off this plane until it landed in backwoods Montana. I'd have to think of something then, something that involved getting past the Academy's magical wards and ten times as many guardians. Yeah. No problem. _

Adrian was now fully laughing his ass off. "Oh Little Dhampir. I just love your optimism." Rose couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. But he wasn't, he loved Rose the right way now. David snorted and Rose elbowed him. They had an easy going relationship. One of a brother and sister that were best friends. She wasn't just his guardian, she was his little sister. And he would do anything to protect her from Belikov. He was lost in thought he didn't even realize Dimitri had begun reading again.

"_Although Lissa sat at the front with the Russian guy, her fear sang back to me, pounding inside my head like a hammer. My concern for her cut into my fury. They couldn't take her back there, not to that place. I wondered if Dimitri might have hesitated if he could feel what I did and if he knew what I knew. Probably not. He didn't care."_

Dimitri stopped reading again. He frowned and looked up to tell Rose he had cared. He still did. But Rose already knew he was going to ask that. "I wish that had been true Dimitri, but we both know here it isn't. you never did and you never will. Not about me at least. And Lissa was your charge." This time her voice was different. Sad, soft, as if she didn't want to say that out loud but felt like she had to. He began to say something, but she interrupted him by saying, "Please Dimitri. Don't not now." She wasn't telling him she was **begging** him. something no one had ever heard her say before. She looked away, but not before they saw the one tear that fell down her soft cheek. he started again, this time with no emotion.

_As it was, her emotions grew so strong that for a moment, I had the disorienting sensation of sitting in her seat-in her skin even. It happened sometimes, and without much warning, she'd pull me right into her head._

"How often did this happen?" Abe asked trying to lighten the mood. He wnted to know what had happened but he knew he would find out soon. Rose looked at him. Her eyes were no longer watery but they weren't alive either. It pained to see his daughter like this. It pained Janine too. And they both promised they would kill whoever or whatever was the cause of her tears. "After we got back, yes whenever her emotions got out of control." They nodded and motioned Dimitri to continue.

"_Dimitri's tall frame sat beside me, and my hand—her hand-gripped a bottle of water. He leaned forward to pick up something, revealing six tiny symbols tattooed on the back of his neck:molnija marks. They looked like two streaks of jagged lightning crossing in an X symbol. One for each Strigoi he'd killed. Above them was a twisting line, sort of like a snake, that marked him as a guardian. The promise mark._

_Blinking, I fought against her and shifted back into my own head with a grimace. I hated when that happened. Feeling Lissa's emotions was one thing, but slipping into her was something we both despised. She saw it as an invasion of privacy, so I usually didn't tell her when it happened. Neither of us could control it. It was another effect of the bond, a bond neither of us fully understood. Legends existed about psychic links between guardians and their Moroi, but the stories had never mentioned anything like this. We fumbled through it as best we could. _

_Near the end of the flight, Dimitri walked back to where I sat and traded places with the guardian beside me. I pointedly turned away, staring out the window absentmindedly. Several moments of silence passed. Finally, he said, "Were you really going to attack all of us?"_

_I didn't answer. _

_"Doing that... Protecting her like that-it was very brave. " _

Her mother scoffed and looked at him incredulously. Alberta was amused. He continued reading.

_He paused. "Stupid, but still brave. Why did you even try it?"_

_I glanced over at him, brushing my hair out of my face so I could look him levelly in the eye. "Because I'm her guardian." I turned back toward the window. _

"Thank you," Lissa said in a small voice, but Rose didn't hear her. She was too busy in her own thoughts to pay attention to anything. She was thinking of going back to Spain. Back home, relax, have fun. Be away from all the painful memories this place held. But Lissa didn't know that, and she was hurt that Rose didn't even glance her way.

_After another quiet moment, he stood up and returned to the front of the jet. _

_When we landed, Lissa and I had no choice but to let the commandos drive us out to the Academy. Our car stopped at the gate, and our driver spoke with guards who verified we weren't Strigoi about to go off on a killing spree. After a minute, they let us pass on through the wards and up to the Academy itself. It was around sunset-the start of the vampiric day-and the campus lay wrapped in shadows. _

_It probably looked the same, sprawling and gothic. The Moroi were big on tradition; nothing ever changed with them. This school wasn't as old as the ones back in Europe, but it had been built in the same style. The buildings boasted elaborate, almost churchlike architecture, with high peaks and stone. Wrought iron gates enclosed small gardens and doorways here and living on a college campus, I had a new appreciation for just how much this place resembled a university more than a typical high school. _

_We were on the secondary campus, which was divided into lower and upper schools. Each was built around a large open quadrangle decorated with stone paths and enormous, century-old trees. We were going toward the upper school's quad, which had academic buildings on one side, while dhampir dormitories and the gym sat opposite. Moroi dorms sat on one of the other ends, and opposite them were the administrative buildings that also served the lower school. Younger students lived on the primary campus, farther to the west. _

_Around all the campuses were space, space, and more space. We were in Montana, after all, miles away from any real city. The air felt cool in my lungs and smelled of pine and wet, decaying leaves. Overgrown forests ringed the perimeters of the Academy, and during the day, you could see mountains rising up in the distance. _

_As we walked into the main part of the upper school, I broke from my guardian and ran up to Dimitri. _

_"Hey, Comrade."_

"I always wondered where you'd gotten that name from," Dimitri asked Rose. Rose even allowed her self to laugh, and her laughter wrapped everyone around. She shrugged, "If only I actually knew," she said wistfully.

_He kept walking and wouldn't look at me. "You want to talk now?_

_"Are you taking us to Kirova?"_

_"HeadmistressKirova, " he corrected. On the other side of him, Lissa shot me a look that said, Don'tstart something. _

_"Headmistress. Whatever. She's still a self-righteous old bit-"_

"You have no respect do you?" Abe asked her. Except it wasn't a reprimand. It was pride. He was proud of his daughter.

_My words faded as the guardians led us through a set of doors-straight into the commons. I sighed. Were these people really so cruel? There had to be at least a dozen ways to get to Kirova's office, and they were taking us right through the center of the commons. _

_And it was breakfast time. _

Everyone actually laughed. Lissa and Rose frowned.

_Novice guardians-dhampirs like me-and Moroi sat together, eating and socializing, faces alight with whatever current gossip held the Academy's attention. When we entered, the loud buzz of conversation stopped instantly, like someone had flipped a switch. Hundreds of sets of eyes swiveled toward us. _

_I returned the stares of my former classmates with a lazy grin, trying to get a sense as to whether things had changed. Nope. Didn't seem like it. Camille Conta still looked like the prim, perfectly groomed bitch I remembered, still the self-appointed leader of the Academy's royal Moroi cliques. Off to the side, Lissa's gawky near-cousin Natalie watched with wide eyes, as innocent and naive as before. _

_And on the other side of the room... Well, that was interesting. Aaron. Poor, poor Aaron, who'd no doubt had his heart broken when Lissa left. He still looked as cute as ever-maybe more so now-with those same golden looks that complemented hers so well. His eyes followed her every move. Yes. Definitely not over her. It was sad, really, because Lissa had never really been all that into him. I think she'd gone out with him simply because it seemed like the expected thing to do. _

_But what I found most interesting was that Aaron had apparently found a way to pass the time without her. Beside him, holding his hand, was a Moroi girl who looked about eleven but had to be older, unless he'd become a pedophile during our absence. With plump little cheeks and blond ringlets, she looked like a porcelain doll. A very pissed off and evil porcelain doll. She gripped his hand tightly and shot Lissa a look of such burning hatred that it stunned me. What the hell was that all about? She was no one I knew. Just a jealous girlfriend, I guessed. I'd be pissed too if my guy was watching someone else like that. _

Mia blushed a bright red. She must have used all of her blood. Her looks had changed now. She hated the way Rose described her though. Rose laughed again, but it sounded forced. Everyone was trying to hold in their laughter.

_Our walk of shame mercifully ended, though our new setting-Headmistress Kirova's office-didn't really improve things. The old hag looked exactly like I remembered, sharp-nosed and gray-haired. She was tall and slim, like most Moroi, and had always reminded me of a vulture. I knew her well because I'd spent a lot of time in her office. _

_Most of our escorts left us once Lissa and I were seated, and I felt a little less like a prisoner. OnlyAlberta, the captain of the school's guardians, and Dimitri stayed. They took up positions along the wall, looking stoic and terrifying, just as their job description required. _

_Kirova fixed her angry eyes on us and opened her mouth to begin what would no doubt be a major bitch session. A deep, gentle voice stopped her. _

_"Vasilisa. "_

_Startled, I realized there was someone else in the room. I hadn't noticed. Careless for a guardian, even a novice one. _

Janine scoffed again, the other guardians shook their heads, they wondered how se had become one of the best guardians. Rose blushed and she of course knew why. She'd had Dimitri as her mentor.

_With a great deal of effort, Victor Dashkov rose from a corner chair. Prince Victor Dashkov. Lissa sprang up and ran to him, throwing her arms around his frail body. _

_"Uncle, " she whispered. She sounded on the verge of tears as she tightened her grip. _

_With a small smile, he gently patted her back. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you safe, Vasilisa. " He looked toward me. "And you too, Rose. "_

Rose flinched as she remembered she had indeed killed Victor. (That part did happen) she had killed someone who didn't stand a chance against her. Dimitri, Jill, and Sonya looked up. Everyone had seen her flinch. But her face right now? Hard to describe. Looked like she was fighting an inner battle, and they saw regret pass through her eyes. Through the some what alive bond Rose felt Lissa's confusion. She didn't know. For the first time Sonya Karp spoke, from beside Mikhail who had been really quiet. "Rose its in the past. You couldn't help it. It was the darkness, it wasn't you at all. You have to forgive yourself." Jill nodded her head in agreement. Dimitri asked her a question with his eyes, "**Isn't that what you told me once too? 'Forgive yourself. That wasn't you.' **her words came back to haunt her. All she said before Dimitri continued reading and she looked away was, "That's different," but it was barely a whisper. Yet everyone heard and were left wondering what had they been talking about.

_I nodded back, trying to hide how shocked I was. He'd been sick when we left, but this-this was horrible. He was Natalie's father, only about forty or so, but he looked twice that age. Pale. Withered. Hands shaking. My heart broke watching him. With all the horrible people in the world, it didn't seem fair that this guy should get a disease that was going to kill him young and ultimately keep him from becoming king. _

_Although not technically her uncle-the Moroi used family terms very loosely, especially the royals-Victor was a close friend of Lissa's family and had gone out of his way to help her after her parents had died. I liked him; he was the first person I was happy to see here. Kirova let them have a few more moments and then stiffly drew Lissa back to her seat. _

_Time for the lecture. _

_It was a good one-one of Kirova's best, which was saying something. She was a master at them. I swear that was the only reason she'd gone into school administration, because I had yet to see any evidence of her actuallyliking kids. The rant covered the usual topics: responsibility reckless behavior, self-centeredness... Bleh. I immediately found myself spacing out, alternatively pondering the logistics of escaping through the window in her office. _

Alberta laughed. Only Rose she thought. Mikhail for the first time said, "Were you really going to do it?" Rose thought about it, "Yes, if I needed to protect Lisa."

"_But when the tirade shifted to me-well, that was when I tuned back in. _

"Leave me with the wolves," Lissa teased Rose, but she only gave her a small smile.

_"You, Miss Hathaway, broke the most sacred promise among our kind: the promise of a guardian to protect a Moroi. It is a great trust. A trust that you violated by selfishly taking the princess away from here. The Strigoi would love to finish off the Dragomirs;you nearly enabled them to do it. "_

_"Rose didn't kidnap me. " Lissa spoke before I could, her voice and face calm, despite her uneasy feelings. "I wanted to go. Don't blame her. "_

_Ms. Kirovatsk ed at us both and paced the office, hands folded behind her narrow back. _

_"Miss Dragomir, you could have been the one who orchestrated the entire plan for all I know, but it was stillher responsibility to make sure you didn't carry it out. If she'd done her duty, she would have notified someone. If she'd done her duty, she would have kept you safe. "_

_I snapped._

"About time," Christian teased.

_"I did do my duty!" I shouted, jumping up from my chair. Dimitri and Alberta both flinched but left me alone since I wasn't trying to hit anyone._

"Yet," Maddie said.

_Yet._

"Told you," Maddie said insing song voice.

_I did keep her safe! I kept her safe when none of you" -I made a sweeping gesture around the room-"could do it. I took her away to protect her. I did what I had to do. You certainly weren't going to. "_

_Through the bond, I felt Lissa trying to send me calming messages, again urging me not to let anger get the best of me. Too late. _

_Kirova stared at me, her face blank. "Miss Hathaway, forgive me if I fail to see the logic of how taking her out of a heavily guarded, magically secured environment is protecting her. Unless there's something you aren't telling us?"_

_I bit my lip. _

_"I see. Well, then. By my estimation, the only reason you left-aside from the novelty of it, no doubt-was to avoid the consequences of that horrible, destructive stunt you pulled just before your disappearance. No, that's not-" _

"What'd you do?" Sydeny spoke from the corner. Curiosity clear in her voice.

Rose grinned, "You'll find out."

_"And that only makes my decision that much easier. As a Moroi, the princess must continue on here at the Academy for her own safety, but we have no such obligations to you. You will be sent away as soon as possible. "_

_My cockiness dried up. "I... What?"_

Adrian laughed, "Not so cocky anymore are we Little Dhampir." She rolled her eyes. "That's exactly what I just thought.

_Lissa stood up beside me. "You can't do that! She's my guardian. "_

_"She is no such thing, particularly since she isn't even a guardian at all. She's still a novice. "_

_"But my parents-"_

_"I know what your parents wanted, God rest their souls, but things have changed. Miss Hathaway is expendable. She doesn't deserve to be a guardian, and she will leave. "_

_I stared at Kirova, unable to believe what I was hearing. "Where are you going to send me? To my mom in Nepal ? Did she even know I was gone? Or maybe you'll send me off to my father?"_

Both her parents were hurt. "What did you expect, I didn't know any of you." They knew she was right and they wanted to tell her something but Dimitri had already begun.

_Her eyes narrowed at the bite in that last word. When I spoke again, my voice was so cold, I barely recognized it. _

_"Or maybe you're going to try to send me off to be a blood whore. Try that, and we'll be gone by the end of the day. "_

"Wow," Eddie, Jill, Mia, Vikktoria, and Sydney said.

_"Miss Hathaway, " she hissed, "you are out of line. "_

"No shit. Besides when isn't she?" Eddie teased Rose, who punched him 'lightly' in the arm.

_"They have a bond. " Dimitri's low, accented voice broke the heavy tension, and we all turned toward him. I think Kirova had forgotten he was there, but I hadn't. His presence was way too powerful to ignore. He still stood against the wall, looking like some sort of cowboy sentry in that ridiculous long coat of his. He looked at me, not Lissa, his dark eyes staring straight through me. "Rose knows what Vasilisa is feeling. Don't you?"_

_I at least had the satisfaction of seeing Kirova caught off guard as she glanced between us and Dimitri. "No... That's impossible. That hasn't happened in centuries._

_"It's obvious, " he said. "I suspected as soon as I started wtching them. "_

_Neither Lissa nor I responded, and I averted my eyes from his. _

_"That is a gift, " murmured Victor from his corner. "A rare and wonderful thing. "_

"Yeah right," Lissa said.

_"The best guardians always had that bond, " added Dimitri. "In the stories. "_

_Kirova's outrage returned. "Stories that are centuries old, " she exclaimed. "Surely you aren't suggesting we let her stay at the Academy after everything she's done?"_

_He shrugged. "She might be wild and disrespectful, but if she has potential-"_

_"Wild and disrespectful?"I interrupted. "Who the hell are you anyway? Outsourced help?" _

"Somehow I'm not surprised you said that," Karolina spoke with sarcasm and venome, it made Rose flinch and Dimitri grimace. 'What was that' Rose thought to herself. Even Lissa wondered too

_"Guardian Belikov is the princess's guardian now, " said Kirova."Her sanctioned guardian."_

_"You got cheap foreign labor to protect Lissa?"_

Dimitri had to admit that kind of stung. All the Belikov's with the exception of Yeva and Olena looked at Rose with disgust which Rose saw clearly but ignored as hard as it was.

_That was pretty mean of me to say-particularly since most Moroi and their guardians were of Russian or Romanian descent-but the comment seemed cleverer at the time than it really was. And it wasn't like I was one to talk. I might have been raised in the U. S., but my parents were foreign-born. My dhampir mother was Scottish-red-haired, with a ridiculous accent-and I'd been told my Moroi dad was Turkish. That genetic combination had given me skin the same color as the inside of an almond, along with what I liked to think were semi-exotic desert-princess features: big dark eyes and hair so deep brown that it usually looked black. I wouldn't have minded inheriting the red hair, but we take what we get._

"Cocky much?" David asked Rose. Rose only sighed again.

_Kirova threw her hands up in exasperation and turned to him. "You see? Completely undisciplined! All the psychic bonds and very raw potential in the world can't make up for that. A guardian without discipline is worse than no guardian. "_

_"So teach her discipline. Classes just started. Put her back in and get her training again."_

_"Impossible. She'll still be hopelessly behind her peers. "_

_"No, I won't, " I argued. No one listened to me._

_"Then give her extra training sessions, " he said. They continued on while the rest of us watched the exchange like it was a Ping-Pong game. My pride was still hurt over the ease with which Dimitri had tricked us, but it occurred to me that he might very well keep me here with Lissa. Better to stay at this hellhole than be without her. Through our bond, I could feel her trickle of hope. _

_"Who's going to put in the extra time?" demanded Kirova. "You?"_

_Dimitri's argument came to an abrupt stop. "Well, that's not what I-"_

_Kirova crossed her arms with satisfaction. "Yes. That's what I thought. "_

_Clearly at a loss, he frowned. His eyes flicked toward Lissa and me, and I wondered what he saw. Two pathetic girls, looking at him with big, pleading eyes? Or two runaways who'd broken out of a high-security school and swiped half of Lissa's inheritance?_

"Half of Lissa's inheritance money? Holy shit." Mia said with wide eyes.

Meanwhile Dimitri answered Rose's question, "I saw the first."

_"Yes, " he said finally. "I can mentor Rose. I'll give her extra sessions along with her normal ones. "_

"And he finally cracks," Mark says with a wide, knowing smile making Rose blush. Oksana smacked him.

_"And then what?" retorted Kirova angrily. "She goes unpunished?"_

_"Find some other way to punish her, " answered Dimitri. "Guardian numbers have gone down too much to risk losing another. A girl, in particular. "_

_His unspoken words made me shudder, reminding me of my earlier statement about "blood whores. " Few dhampir girls became guardians anymore. _

_Victor suddenly spoke up from his corner. "I'm inclined to agree with Guardian Belikov. Sending Rose away would be a shame, a waste of talent."_

_Ms. Kirova stared out her window. It was completely black outside. With the Academy's nocturnal schedule, morning and afternoon were relative terms. That and they kept the windows tinted to block out excess light. _

_When she turned back around, Lissa met her eyes. "Please, Ms. Kirova. Let Rose stay. "_

"Compulsion," Janine stated with another disapproving look. Rose had a feeling shw would be getting them a lot.

_Oh, Lissa, I thought. Be careful. Using compulsion on another Moroi was dangerous-particularly in front of witnesses. But Lissa was only using a tiny bit, and we needed all the help we could get. Fortunately, no one seemed to realize what was happening_

_._"No, no one did,"

_I don't even know if the compulsion made a difference, but finally, Kirova sighed. _

_"If Miss Hathaway stays, here's how it will be. " She turned to me. "Your continued enrollment at St. Vladimir's is strictly probationary. Step out of line once, and you're gone. You will attend all classes and required trainings for novices your age. You will also train with Guardian Belikov in every spare moment you have-beforeand after classes. Other than that, you are banned from all social activities, except meals, and will stay in your dorm. Fail to comply with any of this, and you will be sent... Away. "_

_I gave a harsh laugh. "Banned from all social activities? Are you trying to keep us apart?" I nodded toward Lissa. "Afraid we'll run away again?"_

_"I'm taking precautions. As I'm sure you recall, you were never properly punished for destroying school property. You have a lot to make up for. " Her thin lips tightened into a straight line. "You are being offered a very generous deal. I suggest you don't let your attitude endanger it. "_

_I started to say it wasn't generous at all, but then I caught Dimitri's gaze. It was hard to read. He might have been telling me he believed in me. He might have been telling me I was an idiot to keep fighting with Kirova. I didn't know._

"Both," he simply answered.

_Looking away from him for the second time during the meeting, I stared at the floor, conscious of Lissa beside me and her own encouragement burning in our bond. At long last, I exhaled and glanced back up at the headmistress._

_"Fine. I accept."_

"That's the end, should we continue?" Dimitri glanced around. Everyone gave a shot nod.

"I'll read next." Eddie said.

" _Three_

_SENDING US STRAIGHT TO CLASS after our meeting seemed beyond cruel, but that's exactly what Kirova did. Lissa was led away, and I watched her go, glad the bond would allow me to keep reading her emotional temperature._

_They actually sent me to one of the guidance counselors first. He was an ancient Moroi guy, one I remembered from before I'd left. I honestly couldn't believe he was still around. The guy was so freaking old, he should have retired. Or died. _

The guardians sighed. They knew rose wouldn't change in a million years. The others laughed because this was so typical of Rose. And those who hadn't seen her in years missed her.

_The visit took all of five minutes. He said nothing about my return and asked a few questions about what classes I'd taken in Chicago and Portland . He compared those against my old file and hastily scrawled out a new schedule. I took it sullenly and headed out to my first class. _

_1stPeriod Advanced Guardian Combat Techniques _

_2ndPeriod Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection _

_3rdPeriod Weight Training and Conditioning_

_4thPeriod Senior Language Arts (Novices) _

_-Lunch-_

_5thPeriod Animal Behavior and Physiology_

_6thPeriod Pre-calculus_

_7thPeriod Moroi Culture 4_

_8thPeriod Slavic Art_

_Ugh. I'd forgotten how long the Academy's school day was. Novices and Moroi took separate classes during the first half of the day, which meant I wouldn't see Lissa until after lunch-if we had any afternoon classes together. Most of them were standard senior classes, so I felt my odds were pretty good. Slavic art struck me as the kind of elective no one signed up for, so hopefully they'd stuck her in there too. Dimitri and Alberta escorted me to the guardians' gym for first period, neither one acknowledging my existence. Walking behind them, I saw how Alberta wore her hair in a short, pixie cut that showed her promise mark and molnija marks. A lot of female guardians did this. It didn't matter so much for me now, since my neck had no tattoos yet, but I didn't want to ever cut my hair. _

Rose instantly reached out to grab her hair that now went up to her waist. Everyone looked at her. They liked her hair and Dimitri wanted to reach out and grab a handful.

_She and Dimitri didn't say anything and walked along almost like it was any other day. When we arrived, the reactions of my peers indicated it was anything but. They were in the middle of setting up when we entered the gym, and just like in the commons, all eyes fell on me. I couldn't decide if I felt like a rock star or a circus freak. _

"Rock star," Alisa told her like it was the simplest thing in the world.

_All right, then. If I was going to be stuck here for a while, I wasn't going to act afraid of them all anymore. Lissa and I had once held this school's respect, and it was time to remind everyone of that. _

"And you did," Eddie told her, she winked at him.

_Scanning the staring, openmouthed novices, I looked for a familiar face. Most of them were guys. One caught my eye, and I could barely hold back my grin._

_"Hey Mason, wipe the drool off your face. If you're going to think about me naked, do it on your own time. "_

_A few snorts and snickers broke the awed silence, and Mason Ashford snapped out of his haze, giving me a lopsided smile. With red hair that stuck up everywhere and a smattering of freckles, he was nice-looking, though not exactly hot. He was also one of the funniest guys I knew. We'd been good friends back in the day. _

"How old are you again?" Oksana teased her.

_"This is my time, Hathaway. I'm leading today's session. "_

_"Oh yeah?"I retorted. "Huh. Well, I guess this is a good time to think about me naked, then. "_

_"It's always a good a time to think about you naked, " added someone nearby, breaking the tension further. Eddie Castile. Another friend of mine. _

Eddie blushed he'd had a crush on her back in the day.

_Dimitri shook his head and walked off, muttering something in Russian that didn't sound complimentary. _

"What'd you say," Rose asked him with curiosity. He seemed to ponder wether or not to her. He decided to tell her, "I said, 'The rumors are true then,'" he seemed ashamed of it. Rose blushed a little bit and looked away hurt and ashamed.

_But as for me... Well, just like that, I was one of the novices again. They were an easygoing bunch, less focused on pedigree and politics than the Moroi students. _

_The class engulfed me, and I found myself laughing and seeing those I'd nearly forgotten about. Everyone wanted to know where we'd been; apparently Lissa and I had become legends. I couldn't tell them why we'd left, of course, so I offered up a lot of taunts and wouldn't-you-like-to-knows that served just as well. _

_The happy reunion lasted a few more minutes before the adult guardian who oversaw the training came over and scolded Mason for neglecting his duties. Still grinning, he barked out orders to everyone, explaining what exercises to start with. Uneasily I realized I didn't know most of them. _

_"Come on, Hathaway, " he said, taking my arm. "You can be my partner. Let's see what you've been doing all this time. "_

_An hour later, he had his answer. _

_"Not practicing, huh?"_

_"Ow, "I groaned, momentarily incapable of normal speech._

_He extended a hand and helped me up from the mat he'd knocked me down on-about fifty times. _

_"I hate you, " I told him, rubbing a spot on my thigh that was going to have a wicked bruise tomorrow. _

"I didn't mean it," Rose said out loud. Mason was still a touchy subject. Eddie seemed sad.

_"You'd hate me more if I held back. "_

_"Yeah, that's true, " I agreed, staggering along as the class put the equipment back. _

_"You actually did okay. "_

_"What? I just had my ass handed to me. " _

_"Well, of course you did. It's been two years. But hey, you're still walking. That's something. " He grinned mockingly. _

_"Did I mention I hate you?"_

"i didn't mean it," she said more to herself.

_He flashed me another smile, which quickly faded to something more serious. "Don't take this the wrong way... I mean, you really are a scrapper, but there's no way you'll be able to take your trials in the spring-"_

_"They're making me take extra practice sessions, " I explained. Not that it mattered. I planned on getting Lissa and me out of here before these practices really became an issue. "I'll be ready. "_

_"Extra sessions with who ?"_

_"That tall guy. Dimitri."_

_Mason stopped walking and stared at me. "You're putting in extra time with Belikov?"_

_"Yeah, so what?"_

_"So the man is a god. "_

"So that's were you got it from," Dimitri told Rose. But Rose ignored him. she was too busy thinking about Mason and about that dreadful day. Dimitri knew what she was doing. "Stop it. It wasn't your fault. He made hiss choice Roza," he gently told her. The use of her old nickname sparked something in her everyone saw. She gave him a small smile. A genuine smile. That little exchange made Christian more suspicious. Could they have possibly been together?

_"Exaggerate much?" I asked. _

_"No, I'm serious. I mean, he's all quiet and antisocial usually, but when he fights... Wow. If you think you're hurting now, you're going to be dead when he's done with you."_

_Great. Something else to improve my day. _

_I elbowed him and went on to second period. That class covered the essentials of being a bodyguard and was required for all seniors. Actually, it was the third in a series that had started junior year. That meant I was behind in this class too, but I hoped protecting Lissa in the real world had given me some insight Our instructor was Stan Alto, whom we referred to simply as "Stan" behind his back and "Guardian Alto" in formal settings. He was a little older than Dimitri, but not nearly as tall, and he always looked pissed off. Today, that look intensified when he walked into the classroom and saw me sitting there. His eyes widened in mock surprise as he circled the room and came to stand beside my desk. _

_"What's this? No one told me we had a guest speaker here today. Rose Hathaway. What a privilege! How very generous of you to take time out of your busy schedule and share your knowledge with us. "_

_I felt my cheeks burning, but in a great show of self-control, I stopped myself from telling him to fuck off. I'm pretty sure my face must have delivered that message, however, because his sneer increased. He gestured for me to stand up. _

_"Well, come on, come on. Don't sit there! Come up to the front so you can help me lecture the class. "_

_I sank into my seat. "You don't really mean-"_

_The taunting smile dried up. "I mean exactly what I say, Hathaway. Go to the front of the class. "_

_A thick silence enveloped the room. Stan was a scary instructor, and most of the class was too awed to laugh at my disgrace quite yet. Refusing to crack, I strode up to the front of the room and turned to face the class. I gave them a bold look and tossed my hair over my shoulders, earning a few sympathetic smiles from my friends. I then noticed I had a larger audience than expected. A few guardians-including Dimitri-lingered in the back of the room. Outside the Academy, guardians focused on one-on-one protection. Here, guardians had a lot more people to protect and they had to train the novices. So rather than follow any one person around, they worked shifts guarding the school as a whole and monitoring classes._

_"So, Hathaway, " said Stan cheerfully, strolling back up to the front with me. "Enlighten us about your protective techniques. "_

_"My... Techniques?"_

_"Of course. Because presumably you must have had some sort of plan the rest of us couldn't understand when you took an underage Moroi royal out of the Academy and exposed her to constant Strigoi threats."_

_It was the Kirova lecture all over again, except with more witnesses. _

_"We never ran into any Strigoi, " I replied stiffly. _

_"Obviously, " he said with a snicker. "I already figured that out, seeing as how you're still alive. "_

_I wanted to shout that maybe I could have defeated a Strigoi, but after getting beat up in the last class, I now suspected I couldn't have survived an attack by Mason, let alone an actual Strigoi. When I didn't say anything, Stan started pacing in front of the class. _

_"So what'd you do? How'd you make sure she stayed safe? Did you avoid going out at night?"_

_"Sometimes. "That was true-especially when we'd first run away. We'd relaxed a little after months went by with no attacks. _

_"Sometimes, "he repeated in a high-pitched voice, making my answer sound incredibly stupid. "Well then, I suppose you slept during the day and stayed on guard at night. "_

_"Er... No. "_

"You're getting burned," Jill commented.

_"No? But that's one of the first things mentioned in the chapter on solo guarding. Oh wait, you wouldn't know that because you weren't here. "_

_I swallowed back more swear words. "I watched the area whenever we went out, " I said, needing to defend myself._

_"Oh? Well that's something. Did you use Carnegie's Quadrant Surveillance Method or the Rotational Survey?"_

_I didn't say anything._

_"Ah. I'm guessing you used the Hathaway Glance-Around-When-You-Remember-To Method. "_

_"No!" I exclaimed angrily. "That's not true. I watched her. She's still alive, isn't she?"_

_He walked back up to me and leaned toward my face. "Because you gotlucky. "_

_"Strigoi aren't lurking around every corner out there, " I shot back. "It's not like what we've been taught. It's safer than you guys make it sound. "_

_"Safer?Safer? We are at war with the Strigoi!" he yelled. I could smell coffee on his breath, he was so close. "One of them could walk right up to you and snap your pretty little neck before you even noticed him-and he'd barely break a sweat doing it. You might have more speed and strength than a Moroi or a human, but you are nothing, nothing, compared to a Strigoi. They are deadly, and they are powerful. And do you know what makes them more powerful?"_

_No way was I going to let this jerk make me cry. Looking away from him, I tried to focus on something else. My eyes rested on Dimitri and the other guardians. They were watching my humiliation, stone-faced. _

_"Moroi blood, " I whispered. _

_"What was that?" asked Stan loudly. "I didn't catch it. "_

_I spun back around to face him. "Moroi blood! Moroi blood makes them stronger. "_

_He nodded in satisfaction and took a few steps back. "Yes. It does. It makes them stronger and harder to destroy. They'll kill and drink from a human or dhampir, but they want Moroi blood more than anything else. They seek it. They've turned to the dark side to gain immortality, and they want to do whatever they can to keep that immortality. Desperate Strigoi have attacked Moroi in public. Groups of Strigoi have raided academies exactly like this one. There are Strigoi who have lived for thousands of years and fed off generations of Moroi. They're almost impossible to kill. And that is why Moroi numbers are dropping. They aren't strong enough-even with guardians- to protect themselves. Some Moroi don't even see the point of running anymore and are simply turning Strigoi by choice. And as the Moroi disappear... "_

_"... So do the dhampirs, " I finished. _

_"Well, " he said, licking sprayed spit off his lips. "It looks like you learned something after all. Now we'll have to see if you can learn enough to pass this class and qualify for your field experience next semester."_

"He really hated your guts," Eddie said.

"Don't I know it."

_Ouch. I spent the rest of that horrible class-in my seat, thankfully-replaying those last words in my mind. The senior-year field experience was the best part of a novice's education. We'd have no classes for half a semester. Instead, we'd each be assigned a Moroi student to guard and follow around. The adult guardians would monitor us and test us with staged attacks and other threats. How a novice passed that field experience was almost as important as all the rest of her grades combined. It could influence which Moroi she got assigned to after graduation. And me?There was only one Moroi I wanted. _

_Two classes later, I finally earned my lunch escape. As I stumbled across campus toward the commons, Dimitri fell into step beside me, not looking particularly godlike-unless you counted his godly good looks. _

"Rose, Rose," Alberta sighed. She too had her suspicions.

_"I suppose you saw what happened in Stan's class?" I asked, not bothering with titles. _

_"Yes. "_

_"And you don't think that was unfair?"_

_"Was he right? Do you think you were fully prepared to protect Vasilisa?"_

_I looked down at the ground. "I kept her alive, " I mumbled. _

_"How did you do fighting against your classmates today?"_

"That's mean," Sydney said. Rose shrugged. "I'm used to it," everyone turned around to look at her but she was only looking at Dimitri. He shook his head at her. She nodded and looked away hurt. They were making a lot more obvious now. Which is why he continued on reading.

_The question was mean. I didn't answer and knew I didn't need to. I'd had another training class after Stan's, and no doubt Dimitri had watched me get beat up there too. _

_"If you can't fight them -"_

_"Yeah, yeah, I know, " I snapped. _

"Not really smart. Going against the reason you stayed there."Mark told Rose. She only sighed.

_He slowed his long stride to match my pain-filled one. "You're strong and fast by nature. You just need to keep yourself trained. Didn't you play any sports while you were gone?" _

_"Sure, " I shrugged. "Now and then. "_

_"You didn't join any teams?"_

_"Too much work. If I'd wanted to practice that much, I'd have stayed here. "_

Everyone gave her an exasperated look. She shrugged, "What? It's true."

_He gave me an exasperated look. "You'll never be able to really protect the princess if you don't hone your skills. You'll always be lacking."_

_"I'll be able to protect her, " I said fiercely. _

_"You have no guarantees of being assigned to her, you know-for your field experience or after you graduate. " Dimitri's voice was low and unapologetic. They hadn't given me a warm and fuzzy mentor._

"Oh, but they did, Little Dhampir,"Rose glared at him, "Don't" she warned.

_"No one wants to waste the bond- but no one's going to give her an inadequate guardian either. If you want to be with her, then you need to work for it. You have your lessons. You have me. Use us or don't. You're an ideal choice to guard Vasilisa when you both graduate-if you can prove you're worthy. I hope you will. "_

"And you did," he told her. She gave him a nod.

_"Lissa, call her Lissa, " I corrected. She hated her full name, much preferring the Americanized nickname. _

_He walked away, and suddenly, I didn't feel like such a badass anymore._

_By now, I'd burned up a lot of time leaving class. Most everyone else had long since sprinted inside the commons for lunch, eager to maximize their social time. I'd almost made it back there myself when a voice under the door's overhang called to me._

_"Rose?"_

_Peering in the voice's direction, I caught sight of Victor Dashkov, his kind face smiling at me as he leaned on a cane near the building's wall. His two guardians stood nearby at a polite distance. _

_"Mr. Dash-er, Your Highness. Hi. "_

"A miracle has happened!" Christian yelled. Rose threw a book at him, and he glared at her.

_I caught myself just in time, having nearly forgotten Moroi royal terms. I hadn't used them while living among humans. The Moroi chose their rulers from among twelve royal families. The eldest in the family got the title of "prince" or "princess. " Lissa had gotten hers because she was the only one left in her line. _

_"How was your first day?" he asked. _

_"Not over yet. "I tried to think of something conversational. "Are you visiting here for a while?"_

_"I'll be leaving this afternoon after I say hello to Natalie. When I heard Vasilisa-and you-had returned, I simply had to come see you. I nodded, not sure what else to say. He was more Lissa's friend than mine. "I wanted to tell you... " He spoke hesitantly. "I understand the gravity of what you did, but I think Headmistress Kirova failed to acknowledge something. You did keep Vasilisa safe all this time. That is impressive. "_

_"Well, it's not like I faced down Strigoi or anything, " I said. _

_"But you faced down some things?"_

_"Sure. The school sent psi-hounds once. "_

_"Remarkable. "_

_"Not really. Avoiding them was pretty easy. "_

"Seriously?" Mia said.

_He laughed. "I've hunted with them before. They aren't that easy to evade, not with their powers and intelligence. " It was true. Psi-hounds were one of many types of magical creatures that wandered the world, creatures that humans never knew about or else didn't believe they'd really seen. The hounds traveled in packs and shared a sort of psychic communication that made them particularly deadly to their prey-as did the fact that they resembled mutant wolves. "Did you face anything else?"_

_I shrugged. "Little things here and there. "_

_"Remarkable, " he repeated. _

_"Lucky, I think. It turns out I'm really behind in all this guardian stuff. " I sounded just like Stan now. _

"Scary concept," Eddie thought out loud.

_"You're a smart girl. You'll catch up. And you also have your bond. "_

_I looked away. My ability to "feel" Lissa had been such a secret for so long, it felt weird to have others know about it. _

_"The histories are full of stories of guardians who could feel when their charges were in danger, " Victor continued. "I've made a hobby of studying up on it and some of the ancient ways. I've heard it's a tremendous asset. "_

_"I guess. " I shrugged. What a boring hobby, I thought, imagining him poring over prehistoric histories in some dank library covered in spider webs. _

Everyone laughed. Or sighed, well Janine did. She just couldn't get used to her daughter.

_Victor tilted his head, curiosity all over his face. Kirova and the others had had the same look when we'd mentioned our connection, like we were lab rats. "What is it like-if you don't mind me asking?"_

_"It's... I don't know. I just sort of always have this hum of how she feels. Usually it's just emotions. We can't send messages or anything. " I didn't tell him about slipping into her head. That part of it was hard even for me to understand. _

_"But it doesn't work the other way? She doesn't sense you?"_

_I shook my head. _

_His face shone with wonder. "How did it happen?"_

_"I don't know, " I said, still glancing away. "Just started two years ago. "_

_He frowned. "Near the time of the accident?"_

_Hesitantly, I nodded. The accident was not something I wanted to talk about, that was for sure. Lissa's memories were bad enough without my own mixing into them. Twisted metal. A sensation of hot, then cold, then hot again. Lissa screaming over me, screaming for me to wake up, screaming for her parents and her brother to wake up. None of them had, only me. _

_And the doctors said that was a miracle in itself. They said I shouldn't have survived. _

"I didn't," she said. Lissa smiled at her.

_Apparently sensing my discomfort, Victor let the moment go and returned to his earlier excitement. _

"Its pretty obvious if you pay attention," groaned Lissa.

_"I can still barely believe this. It's been so long since this has happened. If it did happen more often... Just think what it could do for the safety of all Moroi. If only others could experience this too. I'll have to do more research and see if we can replicate it with others. Yeah. "I was getting impatient, despite how much I liked him. Natalie rambled a lot, and it was pretty clear which parent she'd in heritedthat quality from. Lunch was ticking down, and although Moroi and novices shared afternoon classes, Lissa and I wouldn't have much time to talk. _

_"Perhaps we could-" He started coughing, a great, seizing fit that made his whole body shake. His disease, Sandovsky's Syndrome, took the lungs down with it while dragging the body toward death. I cast an anxious look at his guardians, and one of them stepped forward. "Your Highness, " he said politely, "you need to go inside. It's too cold out here. " _

_Victor nodded. "Yes, yes. And I'm sure Rose here wants to eat. " He turned to me. "Thank you for speaking to me. I can't emphasize how much it means to me that Vasilisa is safe- and that you helped with that. I'd promised her father I'd look after her if anything happened to him, and I felt like quite the failure when you left. "_

_A sinking sensation filled my stomach as I imagined him wracked with guilt and worry over our disappearance. Until now, I hadn't really thought about how others might have felt about us leaving. _

"Of course not," muttered Janine to her self but Rose heard and glared at her.

_We made our goodbyes, and I finally arrived inside the school. As I did, I felt Lissa's anxiety spike. Ignoring the pain in my legs, I picked up my pace into the commons. _

_And nearly ran right into her. _

_She didn't see me, though. Neither did the people standing with her: Aaron and that little doll girl. I stopped and listened, just catching the end of the conversation. The girl leaned toward Lissa, who seemed more stunned than anything else. _

_"It looks tome like it came from a garage sale. I thought a precious Dragomir would have standards. " Scorn dripped off the word Dragomir. _

"Oh uh," everyone said together.

_Grabbing Doll Girl by the shoulder, I jerked her away. She was so light, she stumbled three feet and nearly fell. _

_"She does have standards, " I said, "which is why you're done talking to her."_

"You tell her!" Maddie told her enthusiastically. Everyone laughed. "Well that was the end," Eddie told everyone. They all stood up. Rose, Maddie, David, Adrian, and Alisa said they were going to go eat. Christian motioned Lissa to follow him. She was confused and when they arrived to the garden Christian turned around, "Alright, what's up with Belikov and Rose?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

"The truth?" Lissa was trying to keep calm.

"Yes, the truth. They act weird around each other and ive seen how they look at each other. Just tell me." Lissa hesitated but told him anyways.

"They were together. " Lissa went on to tell him the whole story.

"So he's the reason she left?" she nodded. Christian was pissed.

He walked away and went over to where Tasha was with Dimitri. "How could you?" he didn't know who he asked, but he did. They both looked at him. "What," Dimitri asked.

"I know what you did to Rose! Both of you!" there was a moment of silence until they heard laughter. "WHY?" he asked. Rose and the rest came into the room, they were all there. "She loved you! You made her leave!" once he said that Rose knew he knew. She stiffened. Dimitri glanced at her and then so did Christian. His face softened. But Rose wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Lissa.

"How could you? That was for me to say, not you Lissa." Lissa was hurt, Rose could feel it.

"I made her tell me," Christian said. She shook her head. Rose for the first time looked at Dimitri. Her eyes watered. "It's all your fault. It always is. Since the day you came into my life. You ruined everything!" he was frozen.

"Don't say that Roza. Please don't." she shook her head. She was full on tears. Tasha grabbed his arm.

"She doesn't deserve you. She's acting childish Dimka. We're getting married now." Rose eyes watered even more if possible.

"Go on. Go back with her, she's right. I never deserved you. I knew it. You were always too good for my own. After all she can give you everything you've always wanted. Kids." She looked away. The one sign of the lie. She was prepared to tell him, but he was getting married with her, she couldn't now.

"Ro-" she cut him off.

"Stop. Please don't do this to me. Just stop. Don't go on. I don't know what I did to deserve this from you Dimitri. Why you hurt me so much. You lied to me, it was all a lie." She was backing away now. He was going forward. Everyone was frozen. She backed away to the wall. She couldn't go anywhere.

"Listen to me." She shook her head she was crying now, really hard.

"Leave me alone. I gave everything up for you, its not fair." He touched her and she flinched and she whimpered like a lost dog. She made her way out. "No, don't ever touch me!" his mask fell and you could see his pain.

Adrian came to her rescue. "Walk away Belikov, I'm warning you," he growled.

"You little skank! You stay away from him!" Tasha yelled. Rose was a zombie, she walked over to her and slapped her _hard_ in the face. She wanted to do more, but someone grabbed her. Dimitri went to Tasha. "Leave her alone Tasha." He was defending her.

Rose recovered and Eddie let her go. She walked towards him, her face was grave.

"You were right all those years ago. Love _does _fade… and I've finally realized mine has," She didn't have her guardian mask, she was telling the truth. He nodded, "I realized that a long time ago Rosemarie, I'm glad you now have to." Slap, punch, slap. That's what she felt. She'd lied again. When would the lies stop? She asked herself. She turned around to walk back to the couch, but she stopped mid way and turned around again to face him.

She had a smirk on her face, "I'm not 17 anymore Guardian Belikov, I was stupid back then. Yeah, you used me for your benefit, but get this: You will regret it. You'll pay for everything, hell you already are. And remember this, without me you're nothing. By the way, you disgust me." The smirk never left her face but she felt bad using _her_ against him. Her whole heart had been torn apart. She walked back to the couch, she sat next to David and rested her head on his shoulder. God, was she tired. She closed her eyes, breathing in and out. Trying to block Lissa, but it was getting harder.

She opened her eyes and looked straight at Adrian. "Do it Adrian." Everyone looked at each other confused, Do what? Adrian looked uncomfortable. "Rose it's not time." She rolled her eyes.

"I'm tired Adrian," his eyes softened. He walked over to her and _healed _her. Her eyes brightened a little. 'Thank you' she mouthed. He rolled her eyes.

The Belikov's were offended. Everything she had told Dimitri had been like a stab to each one of them. They couldn't believed they had wanted her for Dimitri. Maddie picked up the book, "I'll start reading…" no one said anything. Rose didn't even hear her. She was carrying two secrets, one would kill her and the other had been a miracle.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

"_FOUR_

_WE DIDN'T HAVE THE ENTIRE commons' attention this time, thank God, but a few passing people had stopped to stare. _

_"What the hell do you think you're doing?" asked Doll Girl, blue eyes wide and sparkling with fury. Up close now, I was able to get a better look at her. She had the same slim build as most Moroi but not the usual height, which was partly what made her look so young. The tiny purple dress she wore was gorgeous_

"Thank you Mia beamed," trying to lighten the mood everything was weird now.

_-reminding me that I was indeed dressed in thrift-shop wear_

"I knew it!" Rose rolled her eyes.

_-but closer inspection led me to think it was a designer knockoff. _

Mia blushed. "Not so cocky anymore huh?" Rose was back to her old self.

_I crossed my arms across my chest. "Are you lost, little girl? The elementary school's over on west campus. "_

Everyone laughed, "Good one!" both Christian and Maddie said. Rose was proud.

_A pink flush spread over her cheeks. "Don't you ever touch me again. You screw with me, and I'll screw you right back. "_

"Nice comeback," Yeah, Christian was being sarcastic.

_Oh man, what an opening that was. Only a head shake from Lissa stopped me from unleashing any number of hilarious comebacks. Instead, I opted for simple brute force, so to speak. _

Everyone rolled their eyes.

_"And if you mess with either of us again, I'll break you in half. If you don't believe me, go ask Dawn Yarrow about what I did to her arm in ninth grade. You were probably at nap time when it happened. "_

_The incident with Dawn hadn't been one of my finer moments. I honestly hadn't expected to break any bones when I shoved her into a tree. Still, the incident had given me a dangerous reputation, in addition to my smartass one. The story had gained legendary status, and I liked to imagine that it was still being told around campfires late at night. Judging from the look on this girl's face, it was. _

"I remember. Everyone was scared of you afterwards," Eddie looked happy. He was remembering the good old times. Every crazy thing they'd done at the academy. Alberta didn't look happy. She hated how much Rose got in trouble, but it always amused her to see what Rose had done.

_One of the patrolling staff members strolled by right then, casting suspicious eyes at our little meeting. Doll Girl backed off, taking Aaron's arm. "Come on, " she said. _

_"Hey, Aaron, " I said cheerfully, remembering he was there. "Nice to see you again."_

_He gave me a quick nod and an uneasy smile, just as the girl dragged him off. Same old Aaron. He might be nice and cute, but aggressive he was not. _

_I turned to Lissa. "You okay?" She nodded. "Any idea who I just threatened to beat up?"_

Everyone burst in to laughter. "Only you would get in a fight with someone you don't know." Dimitri told her forgetting they'd just had a fight. Rose allowed her self a small smile. "You do what you gotta do."

_"Not a clue. " I started to lead her toward the lunch line, but she shook her head at me. "Gotta go see the feeders. "_

_A funny feeling settled over me. I'd gotten so used to being her primary blood source that the thought of returning to the Moroi's normal routine seemed strange. In fact, it almost bothered me. It shouldn't have. Daily feedings were part of a Moroi's life, something I hadn't been able to offer her while living on our own. It had been an inconvenient situation, one that left me weak on feeding days and her weak on the days in between. I should have been happy she would get some normality. _

_I forced a smile. "Sure. "_

She received a few disapproving glances.

_We walked into the feeding room, which sat adjacent to the cafeteria. It was set up with small cubicles, dividing the room's space in an effort to offer privacy. A dark-haired Moroi woman greeted us at the entrance and glanced down at her clipboard, flipping through the pages. Finding what she needed, she made a few notes and then gestured for Lissa to follow. Me she gave a puzzled look, but she didn't stop me from entering. _

_She led us to one of the cubicles where a plump, middle-aged woman sat leafing through a magazine. She looked up at our approach and smiled. In her eyes, I could see the dreamy, glazed-over look most feeders had. She'd probably neared her quota for the day, judging from how high she appeared to be. _

_Recognizing Lissa, her smile grew. "Welcome back, Princess. "_

_The greeter left us, and Lissa sat down in the chair beside the woman. I sensed a feeling of discomfort in her, a little different from my own. This was weird for her too; it had been a long time. The feeder, however, had no such reservations. An eager look crossed her face-the look of a junkie about to get her next fix. _

_Disgust poured into me. It was an old instinct, one that had been drilled in over the years. Feeders were essential to Moroi life. They were humans who willingly volunteered to be a regular blood source, humans from the fringes of society who gave their lives over to the secret world of the Moroi. They were well cared for and given all the comforts they could need. But at the heart of it, they were drug users, addicts to Moroi saliva and the rush it offered with each bite. The Moroi-and guardians-looked down on this dependency, even though the Moroi couldn't have survived otherwise unless they took victims by force. Hypocrisy at its finest. _

"From Moroi, or you?" David whispered to her. "Both." He nodded. She was right. She pretty much always was. He looked at her. She looked so pain, she was carrying a burden. He loved her as his sister, although they were opposites. He still remembered the day they told him she was going to be his guardian and when he met her.

The first time she looked so dead, she was still sarcastic but different. She looked pale, and everything she ate she threw up. He was there for her all the time. They gradually became best friends, though she was hesitant at first.

_The feeder tilted her head, giving Lissa full access to her neck. Her skin there was marked with scars from years of daily bites. The infrequent feedings Lissa and I had done had kept my neck clear; my bite marks never lasted more than a day or so. _

_Lissa leaned forward, fangs biting into the feeder's yielding flesh. The woman closed her eyes, making a soft sound of pleasure. I swallowed, watching Lissa drink. I couldn't see any blood, but I could imagine it. A surge of emotion grew in my chest: longing. Jealousy. I averted my eyes, staring at the floor. Mentally, I scolded myself._

_What's wrong with you? Why should you miss it? You only did it once every day. You aren't addicted, not like this. And you don't want to be. _

_But I couldn't help myself, couldn't help the way I felt as I recalled the bliss and rush of a vampire's bite. _

She was really uncomfortable but thankfully no one judged her.

_Lissa finished and we returned to the commons, moving toward the lunch line. It was short, since we only had fifteen minutes left, and I strolled up and began to load my plate with French fries and some rounded, bite-size objects that looked vaguely like chicken nuggets. Lissa only grabbed a yogurt. Moroi needed food, as dhampirs and humans did, but rarely had an appetite after drinking blood. _

_"So how'd classes go?" I asked. _

_She shrugged. Her face was bright with color and life now. "Okay. Lots of stares. Alot of stares. Lots of questions about where we were. Whispering. "_

_"Same here, " I said. The attendant checked us out, and we walked toward the tables. I gave Lissa a sidelong glance. "You okay with that? They aren't bothering you, are they?"_

_"No-it's fine. " The emotions coming through the bond contradicted her words. Knowing I could feel that, she tried to change the subject by handing me her class schedule. I looked it over. _

_1stPeriod Russian 2_

_2ndPeriod American Colonial Literature_

_3rdPeriod Basics of Elemental Control_

_4thPeriod Ancient Poetry_

_-Lunch -_

_5thPeriod Animal Behavior and Physiology _

_6thPeriod Advanced Calculus_

_7thPeriod Moroi Culture_

_8thPeriod Slavic Art_

_"Nerd, " I said. "If you were in Stupid Math like me, we'd have the same afternoon schedule. " I stopped walking. "Why are you in elemental basics? That's a sophomore class. "_

_She eyed me. "Because seniors take specialized classes. " _

_We fell silent at that. All Moroi wielded elemental magic. It was one of the things that differentiated living vampires from Strigoi, the dead vampires. Moroi viewed magic as a gift. It was part of their souls and connected them to the world. _

_A long time ago, they had used their magic openly averting natural disasters and helping with things like food and water production. They didn't need to do that as much anymore, but the magic was still in their blood. It burned in them and made them want to reach out to the earth and wield their power. Academies like this existed to help Moroi control the magic and learn how to do increasingly complex things with it. Students also had to learn the rules that surrounded magic, rules that had been in place for centuries and were strictly enforced. All Moroi had a small ability in each element. When they got to be around our age, students "specialized" when one element grew stronger than the others: earth, water, fire, or air. Not specializing was like not going through puberty. _

_And Lissa... Well, Lissa hadn't specialized yet. _

"Yes I had," Lissa said defensibly. Rose rolled her eyes.

"We didn't know that yet."

_"Is Ms. Carmack still teaching that? What she'd say?"_

_"She says she's not worried. She thinks it'll come. "_

_"Did you-did you tell her about-"_

_Lissa shook her head. "No. Of course not. "_

_We let the subject drop. It was one we thought about a lot but rarely spoke of. _

Sonya smiled at Rose knowingly.

_We started moving again, scanning the tables as we decided where to sit. A few pairs of eyes looked up at us with blatant curiosity. _

_"Lissa!"came a nearby voice. Glancing over, we saw Natalie waving at us. Lissa and I exchanged looks. Natalie was sort of Lissa's cousin in the way Victor was sort of her uncle, but we'd never hung out with her all that much. _

_Lissa shrugged and headed in that direction. "Why not?"_

_I followed reluctantly. Natalie was nice but also one of the most uninteresting people I knew. Most royals at the school enjoyed a kind of celebrity status, but Natalie had never fit in with that crowd. She was too plain, too uninterested in the politics of the Academy, and too clueless to really navigate them anyway. _

_Natalie's friends eyed us with a quiet curiosity, but she didn't hold back. She threw her arms around us. Like Lissa, she had jade-green eyes, but her hair was jet black, like Victor's had been before his disease grayed it. _

_"You're back! I knew you would be! Everyone said you were gone forever, but I never believed that. I knew you couldn't stay away. Why'd you go? There are so many stories about why you left!" Lissa and I exchanged glances as Natalie prattled on. "Camille said one of you got pregnant and went off to have an abortion, but I knew that couldn't be true. Someone else said you went off to hang out with Rose's mom, but I figured Ms. Kirova and Daddy wouldn't have been so upset if you'd turned up there. Did you know we might get to be roommates? I was talking to... "_

Everyone laughed at all the ridiculous rumors.

"Like I would let you spend time with me," her mother said.

"Even funnier, you pregnant!" Everybody laughed except her. He hit home. She was frozen.

_On and on she chatted, flashing her fangs as she spoke. I smiled politely, letting Lissa deal with the onslaught until Natalie asked a dangerous question. _

_"What'd you do for blood, Lissa?"_

_The table regarded us questioningly Lissa froze, but I immediately jumped in, the lie coming effortlessly to my lips. _

"Always a good liar," Dimitri told her.

"You should know," he flinched. Maddie continued before they started fighting again. Rose didn't need this right now, she thought to her self.

_"Oh, it's easy. There are a lot of humans who want to do it. "_

_"Really?" asked one of Natalie's friends, wide-eyed. _

_"Yup. You find 'em at parties and stuff. They're all looking for a fix from something, and they don't really get that a vampire's doing it: most are already so wasted they don't remember anyway. " My already vague details dried up, so I simply shrugged in as cool and confident a way as I could manage. It wasn't like any of them knew any better. "Like I said, it's easy. Almost easier than with our own feeders. "_

_Natalie accepted this and than launched into some other topic. Lissa shot me a grateful look. _

"They believed it?" Mikhail was surprised at how easily they were fooled.

_Ignoring the conversation again, I took in the old faces, trying to figure out who was hanging out with whom and how power had shifted within the school. Mason, sitting with a group of novices, caught my eye, and I smiled. Near him, a group of Moroi royals sat, laughing over something. Aaron and the blond girl sat there too. _

_"Hey, Natalie, " I said, turning around and cutting her off. She didn't seem to notice or mind. "Who's Aaron's new girlfriend?"_

_"Huh? Oh. Mia Rinaldi. " Seeing my blank look, she asked, "Don't you remember her?"_

"Yes!" Mia yelled at the book.

_"Should I? Was she here when we left?"_

_"She's always been here, " said Natalie. "She's only a year younger than us. I shot a questioning look at Lissa, who only shrugged. _

_"Why is she so pissed off at us?" I asked. "Neither of us know her. "_

_"I don't know, " answered Natalie. "Maybe she's jealous about Aaron. She wasn't much of anybody when you guys left. She got really popular really fast. She isn't royal or anything, but once she started dating Aaron, she-"_

"She really doesn't know how to shut up," Vikk said.

_"Okay, thanks, " I interrupted. "It doesn't really-"_

_My eyes lifted up from Natalie's face to Jesse Zeklos's, just as he passed by our table. Ah, Jesse. I'd forgotten about him. I liked flirting with Mason and some of the other novices, but Jesse was in an entirely different category. You flirted with the other guys simply for the sake of flirting. You flirted with Jesse in the hopes of getting semi-naked with him. He was a royal Moroi, and he was so hot, he should have worn a warning: flammable sign. He met my eyes and grinned._

Rose looked disgusted, so did Lissa. "Ugh I cant believe I came so close to-" she stopped herself before she said anything.

_"Hey Rose, welcome back. You still breaking hearts?"_

Adrian scoffed, "What do you think?" he still felt resentment towards her sometimes.

_"Are you volunteering?"_

_His grin widened. "Let's hang out sometime and find out. If you ever get parole. "_

_He kept walking, and I watched him admiringly. Natalie and her friends stared at me in awe. I might not be a god in the Dimitri sense, but with this group, Lissa and I were gods- or at least former gods-of another nature. _

"That you were," Eddie said, and Rose laughed.

_"Oh my gawd, " exclaimed one girl. I didn't remember her name. "That was Jesse. "_

_"Yes, " I said, smiling. "It certainly was. "_

_"I wish I looked like you, " she added with a sigh. _

_Their eyes fell on me. Technically, I was half-Moroi, but my looks were human. I'd blended in well with humans during our time away, so much so that I'd barely thought about my appearance at all._

_Here, among the slim and small-chested Moroi girls, certain features-meaning my larger breasts and more defined hips-stood out. I knew I was pretty, but to Moroi boys, my body was more than just pretty: it was sexy in a risque way. Dhampirs were an exotic conquest, a novelty all Moroi guys wanted to "try. "_

David laughed, "You're so full of your self sometimes Rose." She shrugged, "Watcha going to do?"

_It was ironic that dhampirs had such an allure here, because slender Moroi girls looked very much like the super-skinny runway models so popular in the human world. Most humans could never reach that "ideal" skinniness, just as Moroi girls could never look like me. Everyone wanted what she couldn't have. _

_Lissa and I got to sit together in our shared afternoon classes but didn't do much talking. The stares she'd mentioned certainly did follow us, but I found that the more I talked to people, the more they warmed up. Slowly, gradually, they seemed to remember who we were, and the novelty-though not the intrigue-of our crazy stunt wore off. _

_Or maybe I should say, they remembered who I was. Because I was the only one talking. Lissa stared straight ahead, listening but neither acknowledging nor participating in my attempts at conversation. I could feel anxiety and sadness pouring out of her. _

_"All right, " I told her when classes finally ended. We stood outside the school, and I was fully aware that in doing so, I was already breaking the terms of my agreement with Kirova. "We're not staying here, " I told her, looking around the campus uneasily. I'm going to find a way to get us out. "_

_"You think we could really do it a second time?" Lissa asked quietly. _

"What do you think?" she asked everyone. Oh, everyone knew she was more then capable but her ego was big enough.

_"Absolutely. "I spoke with certainty, again relieved she couldn't read my feelings. Escaping the first time had been tricky enough. Doing it again would be a real bitch, not that I couldn't still find a way. _

_"You really would, wouldn't you?" She smiled, more to herself than to me, like she'd thought of something funny. "Of course you would. It's just, well. . . " She sighed. "I don't know if we should go. Maybe-maybe we should stay._

_I blinked in astonishment. "What?" Not one of my more eloquent answers, but the best I could manage. I'd never expected this from her. _

_"I saw you, Rose. I saw you talking to the other novices during class, talking about practice. You miss that. "_

_"It's not worth it, " I argued. "Not if... Not if you... " I couldn't finish, but she was right. She'd read me. I had missed the other novices. Even some of the Moroi. But there was more to it than just that. The weight of my inexperience, how much I'd fallen behind, had been growing all day. _

"You guys were so close," Mia commented.

"Clue word 'Were'" Rose said. Yeah she was being bitchy but she deserved it didn't she?

_"It might be better, " she countered. "I haven't had as many... You know, things happening in a while. I haven't felt like anyone was following or watching us. "_

_I didn't say anything to that. Before we'd left the Academy, she'd always felt like someone was following her, like she was being hunted. I'd never seen evidence to support that, but I had once heard one of our teachers go on and on about the same sort of thing. Ms. Karp. She'd been a pretty Moroi, with deep auburn air and high cheekbones. And I was pretty sure she'd been crazy._

"I was," Sonya admitted shyly. Mikhail ran a hand through her hair.

_"You never know who's watching, " she used to say, walking briskly around the classroom as she shut all the blinds. "Or who's following you. Best to be safe. Best to always be safe. " We'd snickered amongst ourselves because that's what students do around eccentric and paranoid teachers. The thought of Lissa acting like her bothered me. _

"Spirit," all spirit users said at the same time and laughed.

_"What's wrong?" Lissa asked, noticing that I was lost in thought. _

_"Huh?Nothing. Just thinking. " I sighed, trying to balance my own wants with what was best for her. "Liss, we can stay, I guess... But there are a few conditions. "_

_This made her laugh. "A Rose ultimatum, huh?"_

_"I'm serious. "_

"Words you don't say much," everyone said together. Did everyone know her that well?

_Words I didn't say very much. "I want you to stay away from the royals. Not like Natalie or anything but you know, the others. The power players. Camille. Carly. That group. "_

_Her amusement turned to astonishment. "Are you serious?" _

_"Sure. You never liked them anyway. "_

_"You did. "_

_"No. Not really. I liked what they could offer. All the parties and stuff. "_

_"And you can go without that now?" She looked skeptical. _

_"Sure. We did in Portland . "_

_"Yeah, but that was different. " Her eyes stared off, not really focused on any one thing. "Here... Here I've got to be a part of that. I can't avoid it. "_

"Why?" Sydney asked.

"Royals," Adrian answered. Yeah that explained everything Sydney thought.

_"The hell you do. Natalie stays out of that stuff. "_

_"Natalie isn't going to inherit her family's title, " she retorted. "I've already got it. I've got to be involved, start making connections. Andre-"_

_"Liss, " I groaned. "You aren't Andre. " I couldn't believe she was still comparing herself to her brother. _

"The hell you aren't," Mia said.

_"He was always involved in all that stuff. "_

_"Yeah, well, " I snapped back, "he'sdead now. "_

"Wow, you really are a bitch," Chrstian told her. She shrugged, "Everyone knows I am."

"Rose that wasn't really nice," both her parents looked disapproving.

"Yeah, well it was the truth," she snapped.

_Her face hardened. "You know, sometimes you aren't very nice. "_

"Couldn't you have called her a bitch?" Mia asked Lissa.

Rose answered for her," Bitch isn't in her dictionary."

_"You don't keep me around to be nice. You want nice, there are a dozen sheep in therewho would rip each other's throats to get in good with the Dragomir princess. You keep me around to tell you the truth, and here it is: Andre's dead. You're the heir now, and you're going to deal with it however you can. But for now, that means staying away from the other royals. We'll just lie low. Coast through the middle. Get involved in that stuff again, Liss, and you'll drive yourself... "_

_"Crazy?"she supplied when I didn't finish. _

"That was really mean," Olena frowned.

Rose sighed. "But it was the truth, and I was trying to protect her. She needed the truth and I gave it to her."

_Now I looked away. "I didn't mean... "_

_"It's okay" she said, after a moment. She sighed and touched my arm. "Fine. We'll stay and we'll keep out of all that stuff. We'll 'coast through the middle' like you want. Hang out with Natalie, I guess. "_

_To be perfectly honest, I didn't want any of that. I wanted to go to all the royal parties and wild drunken festivities like we'd done before. We'd kept out of that life for years until Lissa's parents and brother died. Andre should have been the one to inherit her family's title, and he'd certainly acted like it. Handsome and outgoing, he'd charmed everyone he knew and had been a leader in all the royal cliques and clubs that existed on campus. After his death, Lissa had felt it was her family duty to take his place._

Rose sighed, she missed Andre just as much as Lissa. "Whats wrong?" Maddieasked looking up from the book.

"I miss that. I miss Rhea, Eric, even Andre," she admitted out loud. Lissa looked at her with a pained expression.

"They had loved you as their own and Andre always hoped to get you in bed sometimes," she giggled, causing Rose to laugh.

"He was a charmer," Mia said with distaste. Rose snapped at her.

"Whatever he did to you is in the past, and Andre was nice." She motioned for Maddie to continue before Mia said anything.

_I'd gotten to join that world with her. It was easy for me, because I didn't really have to deal with the politics of it. I was a pretty dhampir, one who didn't mind getting into trouble and pulling crazy stunts. I became a novelty; they liked having me around for the fun of it. _

_Lissa had to deal with other matters. The Dragomirs were one of the twelve ruling families. She'd have a very powerful place in Moroi society, and the other young royals wanted to get in good with her. Fake friends tried to schmooze her and get her to team up against other people. The royals could bribe and backstab in the same breath-and that was just with each other. To dhampirs and non-royals, they were completely unpredictable. _

_That cruel culture had eventually taken its toll on Lissa. She had an open, kind nature, one that I loved, and I hated to see her upset and stressed by royal games. She'd grown fragile since the accident, and all the parties in the world weren't worth seeing her hurt. _

"She had a point," Oksana said.

"Thank you," Rose said.

_"All right then, " I said finally. "We'll see how this goes. If anything goes wrong-anything at all-we leave. No arguments. "_

_She nodded. _

_"Rose?"_

_We both looked up at Dimitri's looming form. I hoped he hadn't heard the part about us leaving._

"Yes," he answered. Rose didn't even bother.

_"You're late for practice, " he said evenly. Seeing Lissa, he gave a polite nod. "Princess. "_

_As he and I walked away, I worried about Lissa and wondered if staying here was the right thing to do. I felt nothing alarming through the bond, but her emotions spiked all over the place. Confusion. Nostalgia. Fear. Anticipation. Strong and powerful, they flooded into me. _

_I felt the pull just before it happened. It was exactly like what had happened on the plane: her emotions grew so strong that they "sucked" me into her head before I could stop them. I could now see and feel what she did. _

"Finally something interesting," Christian said. Rose busted out laughing.

_She walked slowly around the commons, toward the small Russian Orthodox chapel that served most of the school's religious needs. Lissa had always attended mass regularly. Not me. _

_I had a standing arrangement with God: I'd agree to believe in him-barely-so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays. _

Everyone laughed. Sydney looked at her disapproving. She shrugged.

"If god really existed he wouldn't have put me through everything he did," you could hear the bitterness. (I hated writing that part. I believe god does everything for a reason)

_But as she went inside, I could feel that she wasn't there to pray. She had another purpose, one I didn't know about. Glancing around, she verified that neither the priest nor any worshippers were close by. The place was empty. _

_Slipping through a doorway in the back of the chapel, she climbed a narrow set of creaky stairs up into the attic. Here it was dark and dusty. The only light came through a large stained-glass window that fractured the faint glow of sunrise into tiny, multicolored gems across the floor. _

_I hadn't known until that moment that this room was a regular retreat for Lissa. But now I could feel it, feel her memories of how she used to escape here to be alone and to think. The anxiety in her ebbed away ever so slightly as she took in the familiar surroundings. She climbed up into the window seat and leaned her head back against its side, momentarily entranced by the silence and the light. _

"All for being her best friend," Vikk retorted sarcastically.

_Moroi could stand some sunlight, unlike the Strigoi, but they had to limit their exposure. Sitting here, she could almost pretend she was in the sun, protected by the glass's dilution of the rays. _

_Breathe, just breathe, she told herself. It'll be okay. Rose will take care of everything. _

"You had so much faith on her," Karolina spoke. They both nodded.

_She believed that passionately, like always, and relaxed further. _

_Then a low voice spoke from the darkness. _

_"You can have the Academy but not the window seat. "_

Christian laughed giving it away.

_She sprang up, heart pounding. I shared her anxiety, and my own pulse quickened. "Who's there?"_

_A moment later, a shape rose from behind a stack of crates, just outside her field of vision. The figure stepped forward, and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized. Messy black hair. Pale blue eyes. A perpetually sardonic smirk. _

_Christian Ozera. _

"Thanks for my grand entrance," he said sarcastically.

"Oh you're welcome lover boy," she said with **more** sarcasm.

_"Don't worry, " he said. "I won't bite. Well, at least not in the way you're afraid of. " He chuckled at his own joke._

_She didn't find it funny. She had completely forgotten about Christian. So had I. _

_No matter what happened in our world, a few basic truths about vampires remained the same. Moroi were alive; Strigoi were undead. Moroi were mortal; Strigoi were immortal. Moroi were born; Strigoi were made. _

_And there were two ways to make a Strigoi. Strigoi could forcibly turn humans, dhampirs, or Moroi with a single bite. Moroi tempted by the promise of immortality could become Strigoi by choice if they purposely killed another person while feeding. Doing that was considered dark and twisted, the greatest of all sins, both against the Moroi way of life and nature itself. Moroi who chose this dark path lost their ability to connect with elemental magic and other powers of the world. That was why they could no longer go into the sun. _

_This is what had happened to Christian's parents. They were Strigoi. _

"Thanks we all knew that." Tasha snapped.

"Fuck you," Rose said sweetly.

"Who's next?" Maddie asked and interrupted their argument.

Lissa volunteered and begun reading.

"_Five_

_OR RATHER, THEYHAD BEEN Strigoi. A regiment of guardians had hunted them down and killed them. If rumors were true, Christian had witnessed it all when he was very young. And although he wasn't Strigoi himself, some people thought he wasn't far off, with the way he always wore black and kept to himself. _

Christian snorted and rolled his eyes.

_Strigoi or not, I didn't trust him. He was a jerk, and I silently screamed at Lissa to get out of there-not that my screaming did much good. Stupid one-way bond. _

_"What are you doing here?" she asked. _

_"Taking in the sights, of course. That chair with the tarp on it is particularly lovely this time of year. Over there, we have an old box full of the writings of the blessed and crazy St. Vladimir. And let's not forget that beautiful table with no legs in the corner. "_

_"Whatever. " She rolled her eyes and moved toward the door, wanting to leave, but he blocked her way. _

_"Well, what about you?" he taunted. "Why are you up here? Don't you have parties to go to or lives to destroy?"_

"Not yet," Rose dead panned. Lissa flinched and a few shook their heads. Oh well she thought.

_Some of Lissa's old spark returned. "Wow, that's hilarious. Am I like a rite of passage now? Go and see if you can piss off Lissa to prove how cool you are? Some girl I don't even know yelled at me today, and now I've got to deal with you? What does it take to be left alone?"_

_"Oh. So that's why you're up here. For a pity party. "_

_"This isn't a joke. I'm serious. " I could tell Lissa was getting angry. It was trumping her earlier distress. _

_He shrugged and leaned casually against the sloping wall. "So am I. I love pity parties. I wish I'd brought the hats. What do you want to mope about first? How it's going to take you a whole day to be popular and loved again? How you'll have to wait a couple weeks before Hollister can ship out some new clothes? If you spring for rush shipping, it might not be so long. "_

_"Let me leave, " she said angrily, this time pushing him aside._

_"Wait, " he said, as she reached the door. The sarcasm disappeared from his voice. "What... Um, what was it like?"_

_"What was what like?" she snapped. _

_"Being out there. Away from the Academy. "_

_She hesitated for a moment before answering, caught off guard by what seemed like a genuine attempt at conversation. "It was great. No one knew who I was. I was just another face. Not Moroi. Not royal. Not anything. " She looked down at the floor. "Everyone here thinks they know who I am. "_

_"Yeah. It's kind of hard to outlive your past, " he said bitterly. _

_It occurred to Lissa at that moment-and me to by default-just how hard it might be to be Christian. Most of the time, people treated him like he didn't exist. Like he was a ghost. They didn't talk to or about him. They just didn't notice him. The stigma of his parents' crime was too strong, casting its shadow onto the entire Ozera family. _

_Still, he'd pissed her off, and she wasn't about to feel sorry for him. _

_"Wait-is this your pity party now?"_

"Ooh, good one." Mia giggled.

_He laughed, almost approvingly. "This room has been my pity party for a year now. "_

_"Sorry, " said Lissa snarkily. "I was coming here before I left. I've got a longer claim. " _

"Wow Lissa snarky? I thought that was Rose." Tasha said and Rose glared at her.

_"Squatters' rights. Besides, I have to make sure I stay near the chapel as much as possible so people know I haven't gone Strigoi... Yet. " Again, the bitter tone rang out. _

_"I used to always see you at mass. Is that the only reason you go?To look good?" Strigoi couldn't enter holy ground. More of that sinning-against-the-world thing. _

_"Sure, " he said. "Why else go?For the good of your soul?"_

"Yeah!" Sydney said but no one listened.

_"Whatever, " said Lissa, who clearly had a different opinion. "I'll leave you alone then. "Wait, " he said again. He didn't seem to want her to go. "I'll make you a deal. You can hang out here too if you tell me one thing. "_

"Oh uh," David said.

_"What?" She glanced back at him. _

_He leaned forward. "Of all the rumors I heard about you today-and believe me, I heard plenty, even if no one actually told them to me-there was one that didn't come up very much. They dissected everything else: why you left, what you did out there, why you came back, the specialization, what Rose said to Mia, blah, blah, blah. And in all of that, no one, no one ever questioned that stupid story that Rose told about there being all sorts of fringe humans who let you take blood. "_

_She looked away, and I could feel her cheeks starting to burn. "It's not stupid. Or a story. "_

_He laughed softly. "I've lived with humans. My aunt and I stayed away after my parents... Died. It's not that easy to find blood. " When she didn't answer, he laughed again. "It was Rose, wasn't it? She fed you._

_"A renewed fear shot through both her and me. No one at school could know about that. Kirova and the guardians on the scene knew, but they'd kept that knowledge to themselves. "Well. If that's not friendship, I don't know what it is, " he said. _

"True that." Lissa said with a smile.

_"You can't tell anyone, " she blurted out. _

"Nice cousin," Adrian snorted.

_This was all we needed. As I'd just been reminded, feeders were vampire-bite addicts. We accepted that as part of life but still looked down on them for it. For anyone else-especiallya dhampir-letting a Moroi take blood from you was almost, well, dirty. In fact, one of the kinkiest, practically pornographic things a dhampir could do was let a Moroi drink blood during sex. _

_Lissa and I hadn't had sex, of course, but we'd both known what others would think of me feeding her. _

_"Don't tell anyone, " Lissa repeated. _

_He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and sat down on one of the crates. "Who am I going to tell? Look, go grab the window seat. You can have it today and hang out for a while. If you're not still afraid of me. "_

_She hesitated, studying him. He looked dark and surly, lips curled in a sort of I'm-such-a-rebel smirk. But he didn't look too dangerous. He didn't look Strigoi. Gingerly, she sat back down in the window seat, unconsciously rubbing her arms against the cold. _

_Christian watched her, and a moment later, the air warmed up considerably. _

_Lissa met Christian's eyes and smiled, surprised she'd never noticed how icy blue they were before. "You specialized in fire?"_

_He nodded and pulled up a broken chair. "Now we have luxury accommodations. "_

Everyone rolled their eyes.

_I snapped out of the vision. _

_"Rose?_

_Rose?"_

_Blinking, I focused on Dimitri's face. He was leaning toward me, his hands gripping my shoulders. I'd stopped walking; we stood in the middle of the quad separating the upper school buildings. _

_"Are you all right?"_

_"I... Yeah. I was... I was with Lissa... " I put a hand to my forehead. I'd never had such a long or clear experience like that. "I was in her head. "_

_"Her... Head?"_

_"Yeah. It's part of the bond. " I didn't really feel like elaborating. _

_"Is she all right?"_

_"Yeah, she's... " I hesitated. Was she all right? Christian Ozera had just invited her to hang out with him. Not good. There was "coasting through the middle, " and then there was turning to the dark side. But the feelings humming through our bond were no longer scared or upset. She was almost content, though still a little nervous. "She's not in danger, " I finally said. I hoped. _

_"Can you keep going?"_

_The hard, stoic warrior I'd met earlier was gone-just for a moment-and he actually looked concerned. Truly concerned. Feeling his eyes on me like that made something flutter inside of me-which was stupid, of course. I had no reason to get all goofy, just because the man was too good-looking for his own good. After all, he was an antisocial god, according to Mason. One who was supposedly going to leave me in all sorts of pain. _

Rose snorted. "That he did. Thanks for the warning." Dimitri flinched and looked away.

_"Yeah. I'm fine. "_

_I went into the gym's dressing room and changed into the workout clothes someone had finally thought to give me after a day of practicing in jeans and a T-shirt. Gross. Lissa hanging out with Christian troubled me, but I shoved that thought away for later as my muscles informed me they did not want to go through any more exercise today. _

_So I suggested to Dimitri that maybe he should let me off this time._

_He laughed, and I was pretty sure it was at me and not with me. _

"Everyone does," Jill teased her.

_"Why is that funny?"_

_"Oh, " he said, his smile dropping. "You were serious. "_

_"Of course I was! Look, I've technically been awake fortwo days. Why do we have to start this training now? Let me go to bed, " I whined. "It's just one hour. "_

_He crossed his arms and looked down at me. His earlier concern was gone. He was all business now. Tough love. "How do you feel right now? After the training you've done so far?"_

_"I hurt like hell. "_

_"You'll feel worse tomorrow. "_

_"So?"_

_"So, better to jump in now while you still feel... Not as bad. "What kind of logic is that?" I retorted. _

"Not a smart one," Abe said. The distaste was clear in his voice.

_But I didn't argue anymore as he led me into the weight room. He showed me the weights and reps he wanted me to do, then sprawled in a corner with a battered Western novel. Some god. _

"They're good," Dimitri defended himself.

"Whatever Dimitri."

_When I finished, he stood beside me and demonstrated a few cool-down stretches. _

_"How'd you end up as Lissa's guardian?" I asked. "You weren't here a few years ago. Were you even trained at this school?"_

_He didn't answer right away. I got the feeling he didn't talk about himself very often. "No. I attended the one in Siberia . "_

_"Whoa. That's got to be the only place worse than Montana . "_

All the Russians shook their head, and Rose blushed of embarrassment.

_A glint of something-maybe amusement-sparked in his eyes, but he didn't acknowledge the joke. "After I graduated, I was a guardian for a Zeklos lord. He was killed recently. " His smile dropped, his face grew dark. "They sent me here because they needed extras on campus. When the princess turned up, they assigned me to her, since I'd already be around. Not that it matters until she leaves campus. "_

_I thought about what he'd said before. Some Strigoi killed the guy he was supposed to have been guarding? "Did this lord die on your watch?"_

_"No. He was with his other guardian. I was away. "_

_He fell silent, his mind obviously somewhere else. The Moroi expected a lot from us, but they did recognize that the guardians were-more or less-only human. So, guardians got pay and time off like you'd get in any other job. Some hard-core guardians-like my mom-refused vacations, vowing never to leave their Moroi's sides. Looking at Dimitri now, I had a feeling he might very well turn into one of those. If he'd been away on legitimate leave, he could hardly blame himself for what happened to that guy. Still, he probably did anyway. I'd blame myself too if something happened to Lissa. _

_"Hey, " I said, suddenly wanting to cheer him up, "did you help come up with the plan to get us back? Because it was pretty good. Brute force and all that." _

_He arched an eyebrow curiously. Cool. I'd always wished I could do that._

Everyone arched an eyebrow to make fun of her. She groaned.

_"You're complimenting me on that?"_

_"Well, it was a hell of a lot better than the last one they tried. "_

_"Last one?"_

_"Yeah. In Chicago . With the pack of psi-hounds. "_

_"This was the first time we found you. In Portland . "_

_I sat up from my stretches and crossed my legs. "Um, I don't think I imagined psi-hounds. Who else could have sent them? They only answer to Moroi. Maybe no one told you about it. "_

_"Maybe, " he said dismissively. I could tell by his face he didn't believe that. _

_I returned to the novices' dorm after that. The Moroi students lived on the other side of the quad, closer to the commons. The living arrangements were partly based on convenience. Being here kept us novices closer to the gym and training grounds. But we also lived separately to accommodate the differences in Moroi and dhampir lifestyles. Their dorm had almost no windows, aside from tinted ones that dimmed sunlight. They also had a special section where feeders always stayed on hand. The novices' dorm was built in a more open way, allowing for more light. _

_I had my own room because there were so few novices, let alone girls. The room they'd given me was small and plain, with a twin bed and a desk with a computer. My few belongings had been spirited out ofPortland and now sat in boxes around the room. I rummaged through them, pulling out a T-shirt to sleep in. I found a couple of pictures as I did, one of Lissa and me at a football game in Portland and another taken when I'd gone on vacation with her family, a year before the accident. _

_I set them on my desk and booted up the computer. Someone from tech support had helpfully given me a sheet with instructions for renewing my e-mail account and setting up a password. I did both, happy to discover no one had realized that this would serve as a way for me to communicate with Lissa. Too tired to write to her now, I was about to turn everything off when I noticed I already had a message. From Janine Hathaway. It was short:_

_I'm glad you're back. What you did was inexcusable. _

"Wow," was all Maddie said.

_"Love you too, Mom, " I muttered, shutting it all down. _

Janine grimaced. "Rose-" she begun. Rose waved her hand dismissively. She so didn't want to hear it.

_When I went to bed afterward, I passed out before even hitting the pillow, and just as Dimitri had predicted, I felt ten times worse when I woke up the next morning. Lying there in bed, I reconsidered the perks of running away. Then I remembered getting my ass kicked and figured the only way to prevent that from happening again was to go endure some more of it this morning. _

_My soreness made it all that much worse, but I survived the before-school practice with Dimitri and my subsequent classes without passing out or fainting. _

_At lunch, I dragged Lissa away from Natalie's table early and gave her a Kirova-worthy lecture about Christian-particularly chastising her for letting him know about our blood arrangement. If that got out, it'd kill both of us socially and I didn't trust him not to tell. _

Christian sighed and Rose apologized. That was a first.

_Lissa had other concerns. _

_"You were in my head again?" she exclaimed. "For that long?"_

_"I didn't do it on purpose, " I argued. "It just happened. And that's not the point. How long did you hang out with him afterward?"_

_"Not that long. It was kind of... Fun. "_

_"Well, you can't do it again. If people find out you're hanging out with him, they'll crucify you. " I eyed her warily. "You aren't, like, into him, are you?"_

_She scoffed. "No. Of course not." _

_"Good. Because if you're going to go after a guy, steal Aaron back. " He was boring, yes, but safe. Just like Natalie. How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe. _

_She laughed. "Mia would claw my eyes out. "We can take her. Besides, he deserves someone who doesn't shop at Gap Kids. "_

_"Rose, you've got to stop saying things like that. "_

_"I'm just saying what you won't. "_

_"She's only a year younger, " said Lissa. She laughed. "I can't believe you think I'm the one who's going to get us in trouble. "_

_Smiling as we strolled toward class, I gave her a sidelong glance. "Aaron does look pretty good though, huh?"_

_She smiled back and avoided my eyes. "Yeah. Pretty good. "_

_"Ooh. You see? You should go after him. "_

_"Whatever. I'm fine being friends now. "_

_"Friends who used to stick their tongues down each other's throats."_

_She rolled her eyes. _

_"Fine. "I let my teasing go. "Let Aaron stay in the nursery school. Just so long as you stay away from Christian. He's dangerous. "_

_"You're overreacting. He's not going Strigoi. "_

_"He's a bad influence. "_

"I'm the bad influence here?" Christian gasped. She sighed.

_She laughed. "You think I'm in danger of going Strigoi?"_

_She didn't wait for my answer, instead pushing ahead to open the door to our science class. Standing there, I uneasily replayed her words and then followed a moment later. When I did, I got to see royal power in action. A few guys-with giggling, watching girls-were messing with a gangly-looking Moroi. I didn't know him very well, but I knew he was poor and certainly not royal. A couple of his tormentors were air-magic users, and they'd blown the papers off his desk and were pushing them around the room on currents of air while the guy tried to catch them. _

_My instincts urged me to do something, maybe go smack one of the air users. But I couldn't pick a fight with everyone who annoyed me, and certainly not a group of royals-especially when Lissa needed to stay off their radar. So I could only give them a look of disgust as I walked to my desk. As I did, a hand caught my arm. Jesse. _

_"Hey, " I said jokingly. Fortunately, he didn't appear to be participating in the torture session. "Hands off the merchandise. "_

"Yeah hands off the merchandise. Its my merchandise!" Adrian said mockingly while laughing and winking at Rose. Rose laughed and shook her head.

"Oh Adrian. You're so dead." Alisa nodded.

_He flashed me a smile but kept his hand on me. "Rose, tell Paul about the time you started the fight in Ms. Karp's class. "_

"Which one?" Eddie snorted.

_I cocked my head toward him, giving him a playful smile. "I started a lot of fights in her class. "_

"Yeah you did," her mother said.

"Oops," she said while sighing and rolling her eyes.

_"The one with the hermit crab. And the gerbil. "_

_I laughed, recalling it. "Oh yeah. It was a hamster, I think. I just dropped it into the crab's tank, and they were both worked up from being so close to me, so they went at it."_

"I remember," Eddie laughed.

Lissa frowned.

_Paul, a guy sitting nearby whom I didn't really know, chuckled too. He'd transferred last year, apparently, and hadn't heard of this. "Who won?"_

_I looked at Jesse quizzically. "I don't remember. Do you?"_

"Does anyone?" Rose asked.

"Wish I did," Eddie said.

_"No. I just remember Karp freaking out. " He turned toward Paul. "Man, you should have seen this messed-up teacher we used to have. Used to think people were after her and would go off on stuff that didn't make any sense. She was nuts. Used to wander campus while everyone was asleep. "_

_I smiled tightly, like I thought it was funny. Instead, I thought back to Ms. Karp again, surprised to be thinking about her for the second time in two days. Jesse was right—she had wandered campus a lot when she still worked here. It was pretty creepy. I'd run into her once-unexpectedly. _

_I'd been climbing out of my dorm window to go hang out with some people. It was after hours, and we were all supposed to be in our rooms, fast asleep. Such escape tactics were a regular practice for me. I was good at them. But I fell that time. I had a second-floor room, and I lost my grip about halfway down. Sensing the ground rush up toward me, I tried desperately to grab hold of something and slow my fall. The building's rough stone tore into my skin, causing cuts I was too preoccupied to feel. I slammed into the grassy earth, back first, getting the wind knocked out of me. _

"Howd you heal. No one saw you hurt…" Lissa wondered. "Read," Rose instructed.

_"Bad form, Rosemarie. You should be more careful. Your instructors would be disappointed. "_

_Peering through the tangle of my hair, I saw Ms. Karp looking down at me, a bemused look on her face. Pain, in the meantime, shot through every part of my body. _

"Ouch," everyone said out loud. Rose rolled her eyes.

_Ignoring it as best I could, I clambered to my feet. Being in class with Crazy Karp while surrounded by other students was one thing. Standing outside alone with her was an entirely different matter. She always had an eerie, distracted gleam in her eye that made my skin break out in goose bumps. _

_There was also now a high likelihood she'd drag me off to Kirova for a detention. Scarier still. _

"Really Rose," Sonya Karp looked at her. Rose shrugged again and smiled.

_Instead, she just smiled and reached for my hands. I flinched but let her take them. She tsked when she saw the scrapes. Tightening her grip on them, she frowned slightly. A tingle burned my skin, laced with a sort of pleasant buzz, and then the wounds closed up. I had a brief sense of dizziness. My temperature spiked. The blood disappeared, as did the pain in my hip and leg. _

_Gasping, I jerked my hands away. I'd seen a lot of Moroi magic, but never anything like that. _

_"What... What did you do?"_

"Healed you, duh," Adrian mocked.

_She gave me that weird smile again. "Go back to your dorm, Rose. There are bad things out here. You never know what's following you. "_

_I was still staring at my hands. "But... "_

_I looked back up at her and for the first time noticed scars on the sides of her forehead. Like nails had dug into them. She winked. "I won't tell on you if you don't tell on me." I jumped back to the present, unsettled by the memory of that bizarre night. Jesse, in the meantime, was telling me about a party. _

_"You've got to slip your leash tonight. We're going up to that spot in the woods around eight thirty. Mark got some weed. "_

"Weed?" her parents half yelled.

Rose shrugged. "Yeah, weed. You know that thing that gets you high?" her parents shook their head.

"Hey, if I were you I wouldn't say anything. You're a mobster." She didn't wait for an answer and to piss off her parents more she turned to look at Maddie. "Hey Maddie, we ran out of weed." Maddie laughed.

"Damn, we gotta go buy some." David looked at them disapprovingly. Instead she motioned for Lissa to start again.

"I thought you quit Rose. Don't tell me your drinking vodka again too." Rose giggled.

"Rosemarie!" she heard from the adults.

"Please I quit that shit a long time ago. I'm on to other stuff now." She winked at Maddie.

_I sighed wistfully, regret replacing the chill I'd felt over the memory of Ms. Karp. "Can't slip that leash. I'm with my Russian jailer. "_

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. Rose looked at him defensively. "You were."

_He let go of my arm, looking disappointed, and ran a hand through his bronze-colored hair. Yeah. Not being able to hang out with him was a damned shame. I really would have to fix that someday. "Can't you ever get off for good behavior?" he joked. _

_I gave him what I hoped was a seductive smile as I found my seat. "Sure, " I called over my shoulder. "If I was ever good. "_

"Hard to believe you are," Adrian mocked.

She was about to reply when she got a call. She peered down at the screen. The blackberry read 'Allison'.

She paled. "Rose?" Alisa asked.

"It's Ally Alisa." She froze.

"Answer," David demanded.

She shook her head, he had shook.

"I can't, I haven't seen her in months. What will she think?"

"Rose, just answered." She took a deep breath and ignored the room.

"Hello?" her voice wavered.

"Mommy!" the little high pitched voice yelled. Rose heard a few gasps, from her audience. Her phone had gone speaker and everyone now knew she had a daughter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

"Yes...?" Rose stuttered over the phone. Her heart was beating against her chest. She was afraid it would burst at any moment. Then she heard the most angelic voice; her daughter's. "I miss you, mommy. You havent visited me in a while... dont you love me anymore?" Rose felt like she'd been stabbed. She promised herself she wouldn't be liker mother, yet she'd abandoned her daughter. But she did it because she believed she was a danger to her. "Of course i do! I've been really busy sweetie."Everyone else held their breath, Rose had a daughter? that was not something they expected... who was the father? All these questions were on their mind but they knew they wouldnt get any answers. "When can i see you mommy?" Rose heard the desperation in her daughter's words, and knew she would soon burst into tears. Rose didnt say anything and looked at Alisa for help. She shrugged. She sighed. "How about you come to court and stay with me?" she heard Ally scream on the other side of the hung up after a few minutes. There was a moment of silence. "YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER?" everyone yelled. "Yes, i do. Her name is Allison. And before you ask... I didnt tell you because it wasnt any of your business." no one seemed to know what to say afterwards. Then a deep Russian voice asked what she had been dreading the most."Who's her father Rose?" Rose looked anywhere but him. Her eyes rested on the emerald eyes of Adrian. She begged him for help. "Yours," she finally said above a whisper. He stared at her for what seemed forever, and lunged himself at her...Dimitri gripped both of her arms and she let out a small whimper. The look he gave her right then was one of pure hatred. "I cant believe you could be this selfish..."Yeva stepped in," Let go of her,"she demanded and he did. But as he let go of her he gave her a little shove. Adrian saw this, he saw Rose fall, and he knew she would hit her head with the table. Dimitri saw this too but didnt stop her. This shove wasnt suppost to affect her but she didnt have the energy or thr balance she needed. She was now weak, and the only one that could help her was Adrian... Rose fell and Adrian let out a scream full of pain, regret, and guiltiness. Because he saw Rose split her skull open and he knew this could very easily be the death of Rose. But no one else did, not really. Adrian saw the light go out of Rose's soft beautiful brown eyes.

**(3 days later.)**

Things weren't looking good for Rose. The hit to the head had done major damage to her head and skull. None of the spirit users dared used their magic to heal her. It could go really wrong for her...

No one knew what to do. Janine Hathaway was a mess... no one thought they would live a day to see either Janine or Abe cry, nut they did; every time they saw their daughter laying in bed. Dimitri felt guilty, he had never meant to push Rose that hard, but something was off. Rose was a trained guardian, balanced enough. That shove shouldn't have made her lose her balance the way she did. Something was off and he was sure Adrian knew what was wrong.

Yeva, was somehow the worst. She stayed by her little warriors bed, talking to her, telling her to come back to this world. Everyone hoped Rose would get better for their sakes; they couldnt imagine living without Rose, not even Tasha Ozera.

Rose was a different subject.

She was in the land of the dead. Mason and the Dragomir's had been with her since the beginning. Even they told her to go back, but Rose refused, she didnt want to go back to the pain but it only took Andre one word. "Ally," that's when she knew she had to go back to them. She tried so hard, and it worked, before she left they all said, "Bye Rosie-Posie!" the Posie was added by Andre.

She woke up to find Adrian by her side with Alissa, Maddie, David, and Ally fast asleep. She gave them a small smile, and they let out a sigh full of relief. The doctor came in and said she could go home as long as she was in a wheelchair. She pouted at first but complied. "We havent read the book," David said slowly. She nodded,"We'll read once we're back and once I-I tell them..." Adrian nodded. Alissa gave her a pair of black sweats a white tanktop. Adrian pulled her to the wheelchair and Rose grimaced in pain. Her head was throbbing, she doubted she could get up, that's what the wheelchairs for, she thought. Ally woke up as David opened the door to leave.

"Mommy! I knew you'd wake up! I met daddy!" she was so excited and all Rose could do was hug her daughter tight and pull her to her lap, as Adrian wheeled her to the room.

When she got there everyone gasped, Lissa rushed over to her, but Adrian stopped her. "No," Lissa backed away slowly. Rose pulled strength from somewhere deep inside her, she covered up her daughter's ears, and announced to everyone, "I have something to say; I'm sick: basically i'm dying." She heard gasps from everyone, tears were shed. Adrian squeezed her hand as she began her story.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

Rose was a little scared as she began her story."It all started while I was pregnant... I got sick. The baby was literally sucking the life out of me. My body didn't know how to react and shut it self down.

I was puking day and night... I had massive head aches. And when it was time to give birth... Well it got complicated. Her head was wrapped around the umbilical cord. She couldn't breath, she was born dead. The doctors did everything they could to revive her. And they did obviously.

I thought that was the end... but then things got worst. I fainted a lot, I couldn't work properly... I wasn't functioning well." No body dared say a word as she continued. A tear slipped away from Adrian's eye..a tear everybody saw roll down his cheek.

"The symptoms developed. In a fight with Adrian I fell down the stairs. I broke a rib, that pierced my lung lightly. The doctors checked my lungs... Turns out I have tuberculosis. Pulmonary Tuberculosis." Lissa burst in to tears and Janine asked her daughter, "But-but how?" Rose gave her mother a small smile."A nurse had a nasty cut, she was called in while I was giving birth. She didn't have any gloves on, her blood mixed in with mine. She had advanced tuberculosis which is why my tuberculosis is so advanced. I soon started coughing blood, I was breathless most of the time. I became tired, I began to lose weight and appetite." Christian couldn't imagine a Rose that didn't eat. "Food became something disgusting, the pure smell sent me to the toilet. Not even doughnuts... About a year ago I was diagnosed with the early stages of blood cancer."

Everyone gasped... 'no.' was all everyone could think.

"It's being treated, luckily I don't have to go into chemo yet." Everyone was speechless. "This can't be happening to you Rose," Olena whispered mostly to herself.

"But it is... I didn't want to believe it either... but yeah I'm dying.""MY ONLY DAUGHTER IS NOT GOING TO DIE!" Abe and Janine yelled at the same time. To everybody's surprise Rose chuckled."Adrian said something like that too.""How can you be so calmed about this?" Eddie wondered. Rose gave him a small smile and looked towards the window. "I've had years to grown used to it Eddie."

"I heal her pain and all the symptoms once a week..." Adrian told everyone while he looked at Rose. Lissa and the rest saw how much love there was between them. A love so pure and innocent. A love send from above, from God. It made everyone smile.

It seemed as if a silent conversation was going on between them. Lissa and Sonya saw a golden thread linking them and they both gasped at the same time. Everyone turned around to look at them, Karolina asked the obvious question,"What is it?" before they could answer Rose spoke.

"We're not bonded... but everytime he heals me, its as if he's giving me some of his life. A link forms, I don't know how to explain it, but it's as if I sense him, feel when he's around, feel his pain,everything...and its the other way around. We can't read eachother thoughts, though,but the link is formed out of love, I guess." David smiled.

"Everyone around the house helps her in any way we can," Maddie added.

"Then what about your daughter." The mention of her brought Rose a stab of pain to her heart. Adrian feeling it, hugged her. "Whenever she's around, she sucks the life out of me... we don't know how or why... but I'm weakened by her presence. And I promised myself I wouldn't be like my mother, but I just can't be around her." Janine and Abe flinched a little bit at their mention. "Sorry," she whispered. Dimitri was in too much shock, everyone was. Rose stood up, "I'm going to take a nap, when I wake up we should read..." the few that were paying attention nodded their walked away, with Adrian trailing behind her. Rose didn't want to be here... she wanted to spent her last months with the people that had always been there for her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

Rose woke up from her nap and walked towards the living room, to read more about her life. After her revelation, everyone was sad. Everyone wanted to help her, but Rose had accepted she was going to die.

Christian was going to read chapter 6 of the book, and everyone settled down.

**"Chapter 6**

**AS MUCH AS LISSA AND Christian's meeting bothered me, it gave me an idea the next day. **

"An idea from Rose, is never good," Alissa joked, trying to lighten up the mood.

**"Hey, Kirova-er, Ms. Kirova. "**

"Oh my, she used a title. She wants something," Adrian said making everyone laugh, including Rose.

**I stood in the doorway of her office, not having bothered to make an appointment. She raised her eyes from some paperwork, clearly annoyed to see me. **

"Who isn't?" Christian said sarcastically, making Rose glare at him. But he only smirked at her.

**"Yes, Miss Hathaway?"**

**"Does my house arrest mean I can't go to church?"**

Janine had been drinking water and when she heard christian say that sentence, she choked on the water.

Rose began laughing at her, until her mother glared at her.

**"I beg your pardon?"**

"I bet she thought the world was coming to an end," Maddie said, flabbergasted.

**"You said that whenever I'm not in class or practice, I have to stay in the dorm. But what about church on Sundays? I don't think it's really fair to keep me away from my religious... Um, needs. "**

A few people rolled their eyes.

**Or deprive me of another chance- no matter how short and boring-to hang out with Lissa. **

"That sounds more like it," Adrian whispered in her ear, making her laugh.

**She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I wasn't aware you had any religious needs. "**

**"I found Jesus while I was gone. "**

"You really do know how to lie, don't you?" Karolina asked her. Rose only shrugged.

**"Isn't your mother an atheist?" she asked skeptically.**

**"And my dad's probably Muslim. But I've moved on to my own path. You shouldn't keep me from it. "**

Abe, along with the younger crowd snorted.

**She made a noise that sort of sounded like a snicker. "No, Miss Hathaway, I should not. Very well. You may attend services on Sundays. "**

**The victory was short-lived, however, because church was every bit as lame as I remembered when I attended a few days later. I did get to sit next to Lissa, though, which made me feel like I was getting away with something. Mostly I just people-watched. Church was optional for students, but with so many Eastern European families, a lot of students were Eastern Orthodox Christians and attended either because they believed or because their parents made them.**

**Christian sat on the opposite side of the aisle, pretending to be just as holy as he'd said. As much as I didn't like him, his fake faith still made me smile. Dimitri sat in theback, face lined with shadows, and, like me, didn't take communion. As thoughtful as he looked, I wondered if he even listened to the service. I tuned in and out. **

"Figures," David murmured.

**"Following God's path is never easy, " the priest was saying. "Even St. Vladimir, this school's own patron saint, had a difficult time. He was so filled with spirit that people often flocked around him, enthralled just to listen and be in his presence. So great was his spirit, the old texts say, that he could heal the sick. Yet despite these gifts, many did not respect him. They mocked him, claiming he was misguided and confused. " **

**Which was a nice way of saying Vladimir was insane. Everyone knew it. He was one of a handful of Moroi saints, so the priest liked to talk about him a lot. I'd heard all about him, many times over, before we left. Great. It looked like I had an eternity of Sundays to hear his story over and over again. **

**"... And so it was with shadow-kissed Anna. "**

"Isn't that what you are?" Vikktoria asked Rose. Rose and Mark nodded,

**I jerked my head up. I had no idea what the priest was talking about now, because I hadn't been listening for some time. But those words burned into me. Shadow-kissed. It had been a while since I heard them, but I'd never forgotten them. I waited, hoping he'd continue, but he'd already moved on to the next part of the service. The sermon was over.**

**Church concluded, and as Lissa turned to go, I shook my head at her. "Wait for me. I'll be right there. "**

**I pushed my way through the crowd, up to the front, where the priest was speaking with a few people. I waited impatiently while he finished. Natalie was there, asking him about volunteer work she could do. Ugh. When she finished, she left, greeting me as she passed. **

**The priest raised his eyebrows when he saw me. "Hello, Rose. It's nice to see you again. "**

"Does he know what he's saying?" Eddie asked with a smirk on his face, and Rose rolled his eyes at him.

**"Yeah... You too, " I said. "I heard you talking about Anna. About how she was 'shadow-kissed. ' What does that mean?" **

**He frowned. "I'm not entirely sure. She lived a very long time ago. It was often common to refer to people by titles that reflected some of their traits. It might have been given to make her sound fierce. " **

**I tried to hide my disappointment. "Oh. So who was she?"**

**This time his frown was disapproving rather than thoughtful. "I mentioned it a number of times. "**

"He had," Lissa said.

Rose only shrugged.

**"Oh. I must have, um, missed that. "**

**His disapproval grew, and he turned around. "Wait just a moment. "**

**He disappeared through the door near the altar, the one Lissa had taken to the attic. I considered fleeing but thought God might strike me down for that.**

Everyone laughed, and she received a few disapproving looks.

"I thought you didn't believe in him?" Olena asked her after a few minutes, when everyone quieted down.

**Less than a minute later, the priest returned with a book. He handed it to me. Moroi Saints. **

Everyone started laughing at Rose. Rose frowned, "Not funny," she murmured.

**"You can learn about her in here. The next time I see you, I'd like to hear what you've learned. "**

**I scowled as I walked away. Great. Homework from the priest.**

**In the chapel's entry way, I found Lissa talking to Aaron. She smiled as she spoke, and the feelings coming off her were happy, though certainly not infatuated. **

**"You're kidding, " she exclaimed. **

**He shook his head. "Nope. " **

**Seeing me stroll over, she turned to me. "Rose, you're never going to believe this. "You know Abby Badica?And Xander? Their guardian wants to resign. And marry another guardian. "**

"Was that a bad thing?" Sydney asked.

Rose nodded, "That's big. Scandalous." Rose answered.

"Why?" she asked.

Rose only pointed at the book.

**Now this was exciting gossip. A scandal, actually. "Seriously? Are they, like, going to run off together?"**

**She nodded. "They're getting a house. Going to get jobs with humans, I guess. "**

**I glanced at Aaron, who had suddenly turned shy with me there. "How are Abby and Xander dealing with that?" **

**"Okay. Embarrassed. They think it's stupid. " Then he realized who he was speaking to. **

**"Oh. I didn't mean-" **

Everyone leaned in to hear Rose's answer. Considering her relationship with Dimitri, they wanted to see what Rose had to say to this.

**"Whatever. " I gave him a tight smile. "It is stupid. "**

She received a few surprised looks and she blushed.

"It was before me and um Dimitri," she said.

But still they were surprised. How had she fallen for Dimitri when she believed it was stupid to have a relationship with another dhampir?

**Wow. I was stunned. The rebellious part me of loved any story where people "fought the system. " Only, in this case, they were fighting my system, the one I'd been trained to believe in my entire life. **

"So if you were fighting against your own system, why do it?" her mother wanted to know.

A few silent minutes passed by, and Janine believed Rose wasn't going to answer, but before Christian continued reading Rose answered.

"You can fight against the system... but you can't fight against your own heart."

**Dhampirs and Moroi had a strange arrangement. Dhampirs had originally been born from Moroi mixing with humans. Unfortunately, dhampirs couldn't reproduce with each other-or with humans. It was a weird genetic thing. Mules were the same way, I'd been told, though that wasn't a comparison I really liked hearing.**

"No body does," Janined whispered. She had understood her daughter's answer, but she hadn't liked it.

**Dhampirs and full Moroicould have children together, and, through another genetic oddity, their kids came out as standard dhampirs, with half human genes, half vampire genes.**

**With Moroi being the only ones with whom dhampirs could reproduce, we had to stay close to them and intermingle with them. Likewise, it became important to us that the Moroi simplysurvived. Without them, we were done. And with the way Strigoi loved picking off Moroi, their survival became a legitimate concern for us. **

**That was how the guardian system developed. Dhampirs couldn't work magic, but we made great warriors. We'd inherited enhanced senses and reflexes from our vampire genes and better strength and endurance from our human genes. We also weren't limited by a need for blood or trouble with sunlight. Sure, we weren't as powerful as the Strigoi, but we trained hard, and guardians did a kick-ass job at keeping Moroi safe. Most dhampirs felt it was worth risking their own lives to make sure our kind could still keep having children. **

**Since Moroi usually wanted to have and raise Moroi children, you didn't find a lot of long-term Moroi-dhampir romances. You especially didn't find a lot of Moroi women hooking up with dhampir guys. But plenty of young Moroi men liked fooling around with dhampirwomen, although those guys usually went on to marry Moroi women. That left a lot of single dhampir mothers, but we were tough and could handle it. **

Even Rose had to raise her daughter by herself... somewhat.

"Thanks for the explanation," Christian said snarkily.

**However, many dhampir mothers chose not to become guardians in order to raise their children. These women sometimes worked "regular" jobs with Moroi or humans; some of them lived together in communities. These communities had a bad reputation. I don't know how much of it was true, but rumors said Moroi men visitedall the time for sex. And that some dhampir women let them drink blood while doing it. Blood whores.**

**Regardless, almost all guardians were men, which meant there were a lot more Moroi than guardians. Most dhampir guys accepted that they wouldn't have kids. They knew it was their job to protect Moroi while their sisters and cousins had babies. **

**Some dhampir women, like my mother, still felt it was their duty to become guardians-even if it meant not raising their own kids. After I'd been born, she'd handed me over to be raised by and dhampirs start school pretty young, and the Academy had essentially taken over as my parent by the time I was four. **

"It was for your own good," Janine explained.

Rose sighed, "I know, but that didn't stop it from hurting."

**Between her example and my life at the Academy, I believed wholeheartedly that it was a dhampir's job to protect Moroi. It was part of our heritage, and it was the only way we'd keep going. It was that simple.**

"But you guys sacrifice a lot," mused Sydney.

Rose looked up to meet her eyes, "They come first."

Understandment flashed in her eyes.

**And that was what made what the Badicas' guardian had done so shocking. He'd abandoned his Moroi and run off with another guardian, which meant she'd abandonedher Moroi. They couldn't even have children together, and now two families were unprotected. What was the point? No one cared if teenage dhampirs dated or if adult dhampirs had flings. But a long-term relationship? Particularly one that involved them running away?A complete waste. And a disgrace. **

Rose met Dimitri's eyes.

"Does that mean we were a disgrace?" she asked him.

Dimitri only looked at her.

"Our plans didn't include leaving our Moroi," was all he said.

**After a little more speculation on the Badicas, Lissa and I left Aaron. As we stepped outside, I heard a funny shifting sound and then something sliding. Too late, I realized what was happening, just as a pile of slush slid off the chapel's roof and onto us. It was early October, and we'd had early snow last night that had started melting almost immediately. As a result, the stuff that fell on us was very wet and very cold.**

Lissa and Rose shivered involuntarily. Adrian rubbed Rose's shoulder and Christian brought Lissa closer to him.

**Lissa took the brunt of it, but I still yelped as icy water landed on my hair and neck. A few others squealed nearby too, having caught the edge of the mini-avalanche.**

**"You okay?" I asked her. Her coat was drenched, and her platinum hair clung to the sides of her face. **

**"Y-yeah, " she said through chattering teeth. **

**I pulled off my coat and handed it to her. It had a slick surface and had repelled most of the water. "Take yours off. "**

**"But you'll be-"**

**"Take this. "**

"Thank you," Lissa whispered. Rose only nodded.

Everybody else now knew that Rose had been very protective of Lissa, and admired her for it.

**She did, and as she slipped on my coat, I finally tuned into the laughter that always follows these situations. I avoided the eyes, instead focusing on holding Lissa's wet jacket while she changed. **

**"Wish you hadn't been wearing a coat, Rose, " said Ralf Sarcozy an unusually bulky and plump Moroi. I hated him. "That shirt would have looked good wet. "**

Abe clenched his fists and Rose laughed at him, while he silenced her with a glare.

**"That shirt's so ugly it should be burned. Did you get that from a homeless person?"**

"Mia," everyone chorused as Mia herself, blushed.

**I glanced up as Mia walked over and looped her arm through Aaron's. Her blond curls were arranged perfectly, and she had on an awesome pair of black heels that would have looked much better on me. At least they made her look taller, I'd give her that. Aaron had been a few steps behind us but had miraculously avoided being nailed by the slush. Seeing how smug she looked, I decided there'd been no miracles involved.**

"Do you even believe in miracles?" Eddie asked looking at her.

But instead of answering Rose only smirked.

Her daughter could count as a miracle.

**"I suppose you want to offer to burn it, huh?" I asked, refusing to let her know how much that insult bugged me. I knew perfectly well my fashion sense had slipped over the last two years. **

**"Oh, wait-fire isn't your element, is it? You work with water. What a coincidence that a bunch just fell on us. "**

**Mia looked as if she'd been insulted, but the gleam in her eyes showed that she was enjoying this way too much to be an innocent bystander. "What's that supposed to mean?"**

**"Nothing to me. But Ms. Kirova will probably have something to say when she finds out you used magic against another student. " **

**"That wasn't an attack, " she scoffed. "And it wasn't me. It was an act of God. "**

Eddie rolled his eyes at Mia, and Mia blushed as she apologized to the girls.

**A few others laughed, much to her delight. In my imagination, I responded with, Sois this, and then slammed her into the side of the church. In real life, Lissa simply nudged me and said, "Let's go. " **

"Why didn't you?" Christian asked Rose. She rolled her eyes. While Mia shook her head in disbelief at him, but he only smirked at her.

"Probation."

**She and I walked off toward our respective dorms, leaving behind laughter and jokes about our wet states and how Lissa wouldn't know anything about specialization. Inside, I seethed. I had to do something about Mia, I realized. In addition to the general irritation of Mia's bitchiness, I didn't want Lissa to have to deal with any more stress than she had to. We'd been okay this irst week, and I wanted to keep it that way. **

**"You know, " I said, "I'm thinking more and more that you stealing Aaron backis a good thing. It'll teach Bitch Doll a lesson. I bet it'd be easy, too. He's still crazy about you. "**

"Can you stop it with the nicknames?" Mia groaned.

"You should know better than to mess with Lissa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway," Eddie told her making a few people laugh.

**"I don't want to teach anyone a lesson, " said Lissa. "AndI'm not crazy about him. "**

**"Come on, she picks fights and talks about us behind our backs. She accused me of getting jeans from the Salvation Army yesterday. " **

**"Your jeans are from the Salvation Army. "**

"I knew it!" Mia yelled. Rose only said, "Whatever."

**"Well, yeah, " I snorted, "but she has no right making fun of them when she's wearing stuff from Target. "**

"Whats wrong with Target?" all the girls asked.

Rose sighed in frustration and rolled her eyes.

"Nothing. I like Target." this got her a few looks.

**"Hey, there's nothing wrong with Target. I like Target. "**

"Then?" Mia asked her.

"Just wait and read."

**"So do I . That's not the point. She's trying to pass her stuff off likeit's freaking Stella McCartney. "**

They all rolled their eyes.

"That's a crime?" Vikktoria asked her.

**"And that's a crime?"**

**I affected a solemn face. "Absolutely. You've gotta take revenge. "**

Alberta rolled her eyes.

"Oh Rose," she said out loud with affection.

**"I told you, I'm not interested in revenge. " Lissa cut me a sidelong look. "And you shouldn't be either. "**

**I smiled as innocently as I could, and when we parted ways, I felt relieved again that she couldn't read my thoughts. **

**"So when's the big catfight going to happen?"**

"Mason," Eddie said. That one name brought a lot of unhappy memories.

Adrian rubbed circles on her back.

**Mason was waiting for me outside our dorm after I'd parted ways with Lissa. He looked lazy and cute, leaning against the wall with crossed arms as he watched me. **

**"I'm sure I don't know what you mean. "He unfolded himself and walked with me into the building, handing me his coat, since I'd let Lissa go off with my dry one. "I saw you guys sparring outside the chapel. Have you no respect for the house of God?"**

"He didn't go to church did he," Sydney stated.

**I snorted. "You've got about as much respect for it as I do, you heathen. You didn't even go. Besides, as you said, we were outside. "**

**"And you still didn't answer the question. " **

**I just grinned and slipped on his coat. **

**We stood in the common area of our dorm, a well-supervised lounge and study area where male and female students could mingle, along with Moroi guests. Being Sunday, it was pretty crowded with those cramming for last-minute assignments due tomorrow. Spying a small, empty table, I grabbed Mason's arm and pulled him toward it. **

The adults shook their head at her. But Rose only grinned.

**"Aren't you supposed to go straight to your room?"**

**I hunkered down in my seat, glancing around warily. "There are so many people heretoday, it'll take them a while to notice me. God, I'm so sick of being locked away. And it's only been a week. "**

**"I'm sick of it too. We missed you last night. A bunch of us went and shot pool in the rec room. Eddie was on fire. "**

Rose snorted, "When isn't he?" Eddie only laughed. He missed the good old days.

**I groaned. "Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear about your glamorous social life. " **

**"All right. "He propped his elbow up on the table and rested his chin in his hand. "Then tell me about Mia. You're just going to turn around and punch her one day, aren't you? I think I remember you doing that at least ten times with people that pissed you off. "**

Eddie nodded.

**"I'm a new, reformed Rose, " I said, doing my best impression of demure. Which wasn't very good.**

A few of them snorted. Maddie said, "You good? Not even when hell freezes over," Rose chucked a book her way.

**He emitted a choking sort of laugh. "Besides, if I do that, I'll have broken my probation with Kirova. Gotta walk the straight and narrow. "**

**"In other words, find some way to get back at Mia that you won't get in trouble for. "**

"It was him? Oh my god," Rose laughed at Mia's expression

**I felt a smile tug at the corners of my lips. "You know what I like about you, Mase? You think just like I do. "**

"Frightening concept," Adrian told her, making her laugh.

**"Frightening concept, " he replied drily. "So tell me what you think of this: I might know something about her, but I probably shouldn't tell you... "**

**I leaned forward. "Oh, you already tipped me off. You've got to tell me now. " **

**"It'd be wrong, " he teased. "How do I know you'd use this knowledge for good instead of evil?"**

"Knowing Rose? You don't even have to ask that," tease Christian.

"Shut up Fire Crotch," Rose said sticking out her tongue at him.

**I batted my eyelashes. "Can you resist this face?"**

Dimitri snorted, "Doubt it," he said out loud, making everyone look at him. But he was only looking at Rose.

He would never be able to resist her anything.

**He took a moment to study me. "No. I can't, actually. Okay, here you go: Mia isn't royal . "**

"Thanks for the momentum," Christian said with the usual snarkiness.

**I slouched back in my chair. "No kidding. I already knew that. I've known who's royal since I was two. "**

**"Yeah, but there's more than just that. Her parents work for one of the Drozdov lords. " I waved my hand impatiently. A lot of Moroi worked out in the human world, but Moroi society had plenty of jobs for its own kind too. Someone had to fill them. "Cleaning stuff. Practically servants. Her dad cuts grass, and her mom's a maid. "**

**I actually had a healthy respect for anyone who pulled a full day's work, regardless of the job. People everywhere had to do crappy stuff to make a living. But, much like with Target, it became another matter altogether when someone was trying to pass herself off as something else. And in the week that I'd been here, I'd picked up on how desperately Mia wanted to fit in with the school elite. **

**"No one knows, " I said thoughtfully. **

"Duh," both Mia and Christian said together.

**"And she doesn't want them to. You know how the royals are. " He paused. "Well, except for Lissa, of course. They'd give Mia a hard time over it. "**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"My uncle's a guardian for the Drozdovs. "**

**"And you've just been sitting on this secret, huh?"**

"I wish he hadn't gotten up," muttered Mia, making Rose laugh.

**"Until you broke me. So which path will you choose: good or evil?" **

**"I think I'll give her a grace-" **

**"Miss Hathaway, you know you aren't supposed to be here. "**

"Busted!" Maddie said in a sing song voice.

"Shut up Maddie!" Rose yelled.

"Or?"

Rose glared at her, "Adrian! Tell her something!" she said in a whiny voice.

Nobody bothered to interrupt her, they wanted to see this little exchange.

Adrian looked between Rose and Maddie, his best friend or sister?

"Stop it you two," was all he said, but Maddie stuck out her tongue at Rose.

"Aaaaadriiaannn," Rose whined again.

"Maddie," Adrian warned his sister.

Christian was full on laughter, like the rest, and Christian waited till they all calmed down before continuing. Rose, Maddie, and Adrian rolled their eyes. It was a daily thing.

**One of the dorm matrons stood over us, disapproval all over her face.**

**I hadn't been joking when I said Mason thought like me. He could bullshit as well as I could. **

"Ah, a compliment from Rose Hathaway. That's a high praise," Eddie joked.

"It is," Rose said nodding her head.

**"We have a group project to do for our humanities class. How are we supposed to do it if Rose is in isolation?"**

**The matron narrowed her eyes. "You don't look like you're doing work. **

**"I slid over the priest's book and opened it at random. I'd placed it on the table when we sat down. "We're, um, working on this. "**

"Would have worked had you not mumbled," Dimitri spoke directly at Rose.

She shrugged.

**She still looked suspicious. "One hour. I'll give you one more hour down here, and I'd better actually see you working. "**

**"Yes, ma'am, " said Mason straight-faced. "Absolutely. "**

"He really can bull shit just as well as you," Eddie mused causing Rose to laugh.

"I always thought he was my male version," they all nodded.

They could see it now.

**She wandered off, still eyeing us. "My hero, " I declared. **

**He pointed at the book. "What is this?"**

**"Something the priest gave me. I had a question about the service. "**

**He stared at me, astonished. **

"Imagine us," muttered Maddie.

Rose stuck her tongue at her.

"Aaaadriiiannn," Maddie whined.

"It only works when it's Rose saying it," was Adrian's response. Maddie pouted and Rose laughed.

**"Oh, stop it and look interested. " I skimmed the index. "I'm trying to find some woman named Anna. " **

**Mason slid his chair over so that he was sitting right beside me. "All right. Let's 'study.'"**

Rose could see the signs now. She wished she could've been able to return his feelings.

**I found a page number, and it took me to the section on St. Vladimir, not surprisingly. We read through the chapter, scanning for Anna's name. When we found it, the author didn't have much to say about her. He did include an excerpt written by some guy who had apparently lived at the same time as St. Vladimir:**

**And with Vladimir always is Anna, the daughter of Fyodor. Their love is as chaste and pure as that of brother and sister, and many times has she defended him from Strigoi who would seek to destroy him and his holiness. Likewise, it is she who comforts him when the spirit becomes too much tobear, and Satan's darkness tries to smother him and weaken his own health and body. This too she defends against, for they have been bound together ever since he saved her life as a child. It is a sign of God's love that He has sent the blessedVladimir a guardian such as her, one who is shadow-kissed and always knows what is in his heart and mind. **

**"There you go, " Mason said. "She was his guardian. "**

**"It doesn't say what 'shadow-kissed' means. "**

**"Probably doesn't mean anything. " **

**Something in me didn't believe that. I read it again, trying to make sense of the old-fashioned language. Mason watched me curiously, looking like he very much wanted to help. **

**"Maybe they were hooking up, " he suggested.**

Sydney gasped. "How could he?" Rose sent her a glare that shut her up.

**I laughed. "He was a saint. "**

**"So? Saints probably like sex too. That 'brother and sister' stuff is probably a cover. " He pointed to one of the lines. "See? They were 'bound' together. " He winked. "It's code."**

The few that believed in god, shook their head in disbelief but Rose was only laughing.

She missed Mason so much.

"He really likes you," Sydney mused. Rose nodded, and didn't bother to correct her.

**Bound. It was a weird word choice, but that didn't necessarily mean Anna and Vladimir were ripping each other's clothes off. **

**"I don't think so. They're just close. Guys and girls can just be friends. " I said it pointedly, and he gave me a dry look. **

"Ouch," Eddie said. Rose felt guilty.

**"Yeah? We're friends, and I don't know what's in your 'heart and mind. '" Mason put on a fake philosopher's look. "Of course, some might argue that one can never know what's in the heart of a woman-"**

A few girls giggled and men laughed. But Rose and Eddie had their minds on Mason.

**"Oh, shut up, " I groaned, punching him in the arm. **

**"For they are strange and mysterious creatures, " he continued in his scholarly voice, "and a man must be a mind reader if he ever wishes to make them happy. "**

"Amen to that!" all men exclaimed. And they all received smacks from their girlfriends. Except Adrian, he got two, an extra from Rose.

**I started giggling uncontrollably and knew I'd probably get in trouble again. "Well, try to read my mind and stop being such a-"**

**I stopped laughing and looked back down at the book.**

**Bound together and always knows what is in his heart and mind. **

"And she finally gets it!" exclaimed Sonya Karp.

**They had a bond, I realized. I would have bet everything I owned-which wasn't much-on it. The revelation was astonishing. There were lots of vague stories and myths about how guardians and Moroi 'used to have bonds. ' But this was the first I'd ever heard of anyone specific that it had happened to. **

**Mason had noticed my startled reaction. "You okay? You look kind of weird. "**

Christian stopped reading, "Doesn't she always?" he managed to ask in a serious tone. Rose groaned; Christian smirked and continued reading before he gets killed.

**I shrugged it off. "Yeah. Fine. "**

"Done," Christian shut the book.

There was a moment of silence.

"What now?" Alissa asked.

Everyone turned around to face Rose.

"Duh. We read." was her reply and a few rolled their eyes.

"I'll read!" she said. Christian handed her the book, and they began reading.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

"**Chapter Seven**." Alissa began.

**A couple weeks passed after that, and I soon forgot about that Anna thing as life at the Academy wrapped around me. The shock of our return had worn off a little, and we began to fall into a semi-comfortable routine. My days revolved around church, lunch with Lissa, and whatever sort of social life I could scrape together outside of that. Denied any real free time, I didn't have too hard a time staying out of the spotlight, although I did manage to steal a little attention here and there despite my noble speech to her about 'coasting though the middle.' I couldn't help it. I liked flirting, I liked groups, and I liked making smartass comments in class.**

"Of course you do," said David, rolling his eyes.

"Shush," Rose said.

"Never," he answered while Rose rolled her eyes.

"Can I keep going now?" Alissa asked.

"Go ahead," they both answered.

She too, rolled her eyes before she started.

**Her new, incognito role attracted attention simply because it was so different then before we'd left, back when she'd been so active with the royals. Most people soon let that go, accepting that the Dragomir princess was fading off the social radar and content to run with Natalie and her group. Natalie's rambling still made me want to beat my head against a wall sometimes, but she was really nice–**

"Or so we thought," Lissa's voice held hatred, something that was never seen. The people that didn't know anything raised an eyebrow.

"It'll be in the book," Rose sighed.

**nicer than almost any of the other royals–but I enjoyed hanging around her most of the time.**

"I was delusional," Rose said, disgusted. Adrian chuckled.

"We all make mistakes, even you."

**And, just as Kirova warned, I was indeed training and working out all the time. But as more time passed, my body stopped hating me. My muscles grew tougher, and my stamina increased. I still got my ass kicked in practice but not quite as badly as I used to, which was something. **

"Definitely, soon enough you kicked everyone's ass," Eddie's voice held pride, making Rose laugh.

**The biggest toll now seemed to be on my skin. Being outside in the cold so much was chapping my face, and only Lissa's constant supply of skin-care lotions kept me from aging before my time. She couldn't do much for the blisters on my hands and feet.**

"But my skin is now beautiful, very much thankful to Adrian and Alissa," Rose commented.

"Yes!" Alissa exclaimed.

"So childish," Rose whispered to Adrian and David.

"I heard that!" she yelled, making them laugh.

"Oh, whatever. Read," Rose commanded.

**A routine also developed with Dimitri and me. Mason had been right about him being antisocial. Dimitri didn't hang out much with the other guardians, though it was clear they all respected him. And the more I worked with him, the more I respect him too, though I didn't really understand his training methods.**

"Of course not," mumbled Dimitri.

**They didn't seem very badass. We always started by stretching in the gym, and lately he'd been sending me outside to run, braving the increasingly cold Montana autumn.**

**Three weeks after my return to the Academy, I walked into the gym before school one day and found him sprawled on a mat, reading a Louis L'Amour book. Someone had brought in a portable CD player, and while that cheered me up at first, the song coming from it did not: "When Doves Cry" by Prince.**

"How in the hell did you know that?" Christian asked.

"Hell," Rose answered. Everyone stared at her.

"Don't mind her, side affects," Adrian told them. Rose sometimes got a little... crazy.

**It was embarrassing to know the title, but one of our former housemates had been obsessed with the '80s.**

"Yeah," Lissa shivered a little, but the older adults were lost in the memories.

"**Whoa, Dimitri," I said, tossing my bag on the floor. "I realize this is actually a current hit in Eastern Europe right now, but do you think we could listen to something that wasn't recorded before I was born?"**

Everyone started laughing, "Seriously Rose?" her mother asked. Rose shrugged, "Improvising," she muttered.

**Only his eyes flickered toward me; the rest of his posture remained the same. "What does it matter to you? I'm the one who's going to be listening to it. You'll be outside running."**

"You got toldddddddd!" exclaimed Maddie.

"I know," was her answer.

**I made a face as I set my foot up on one of the bars and stretched my hamstrings. All things considered, Dimitri had a good-natured tolerance for my snarkiness.**

"No surprise there," Sonya smiled at Dimitri.

"Mikhail tolerates a lot about me," she said, looking at Mikhail with love.

"But you see there's a difference. You and Mikhail love each other we," she said pointing at him and her, "don't."

No one said anything after that.

**So long as I didn't slack in my training, he didn't mind my running commentary.**

The teachers and adults looked surprised.

"**Hey," I asked, moving onto the next set of stretches, "what's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little hitting? They're still killing me in group practice."**

"**Maybe you should hit harder," he replied drily.**

Everyone laughed.

"That really helps," nobody missed the sarcasm in Rose's voice.

"Maybe you should follow it," Christian snickered.

"Want to?" she asked, raising her fist.

"No thanks."

"That's what I thought."

"**I'm serious."**

"You're being serious a lot lately. Not something common," observed Eddie.

"**Hard to tell the difference." He set the book down but didn't move from his sprawl. "My job is to get you ready to defend the princess and fight dark creatures, right?"**

"That would be correct," answered Janine.

Rose rolled her eyes.

"We all know that."

"**Yup."**

"**So tell me this: suppose you manage to kidnap her again and take her off to the mall. While you're there, a Strigoi comes at you. What will you do?"**

"You run," all the guardians in the room answered.

"Seriously?"

"I'm guessing she got it wrong?" David spoke.

Dimitri nodded.

"**Depends on what store we're in."**

The adults sighed, typical Rose.

**He looked at me.**

Rose giggled, and Adrian pulled her to him.

"**Fine. I'll stab him with a silver stake."**

"You don't have one," Alberta said.

"I know!"

**Dimitri sat up now, crossing his long legs in one fluid motion. I still couldn't figure out how someone so tall could be so graceful.**

He shrugged, "Years of practice."

Or you're just a god, Rose thought, then chastised herself.

"**Oh?" He raised his dark eyebrows. "Do you have a silver stake? Do you even know how to use one?"**

"No and no," her mother answered for her.

"Thanks mother."

**I dragged my eyes away from his body and scowled.**

Which was hard, she thought.

**Made with elemental magic, silver stakes were a guardian's deadliest weapon. Stabbing a Strigoi through the heart with one meant instant death. The blades were also lethal to Moroi, so they weren't given out lightly to novices. My classmates had just started learning how to use them. I'd trained with a gun before, but no one would let me near a stake yet. Fortunately, there were two other ways to kill a Strigoi.**

"Huh, didn't know!" Christian said sarcastically.

"That just proves how dumb you really are," she answered.

"**Okay. I'll cut his head off."**

"With what?" her mother asked.

"Really? This happened years ago!" she was frustrated, which wasn't good.

"Shhh, calm Rose. Remember."

"**Ignoring the fact that you don't have a weapon to do that, how will you compensate for the fact that he may be a foot taller than you?"**

**I straightened up from touching my toes, annoyed. "Fine, then I'll set him on fire."**

"**Again, with what?"**

**"All right, I give up. You've already got the answer. You're just messing with me. I'm at the mall and I see a Strigoi. What do I do?"**

**He looked at me and didn't blink. "You run."**

**I repressed the urge to throw something at him.**

"Like yourself?" Maddie joked. Rose glared at her.

"Bad joke. Got it."

**When I finished my stretches, he told me he'd run with me. That was a first. Maybe running would give me some insight into his killer reputation.**

Dimitri chuckled, something that Rose had missed.

**We set out into the chilly October evening. Being back on a vampiric schedule still felt weird to me. With school about to start in an hour, I expected the sun to be coming up, not down. But it was sinking on the western horizon, lighting up the snow-capped mountains with an orange glow.**

"Pretty," Sonya Belikov said.

**It didn't really warm things up, and as soon as I felt the cold pierce my lungs as my need for oxygen deepened. We didn't speak. He slowed his pace to match mine, so we stayed together. **

**Something about that bothered me; I suddenly very much wanted his approval.**

"And you'll always have it," he said. She acted like she hadn't heard him, but she had and it made her heart leap.

**So I picked up my own pace, working my lungs and muscles harder. Twelve laps around the track made three miles; we had nine more to go.**

**When we reached the third-to-last loop, a couple of other novices passed by, preparing to go to the group practice I'd soon be at as well. Seeing me, Mason cheered. "Good form, Rose!"**

**I smiled and waved back.**

"**You're slowing down," Dimitri snapped, jerking my gaze from the boys. The harshness in his voice startled me. "Is this why your times aren't getting any faster? You're easily distracted."**

"Jealous much?" mumbled David.

**Embarrassed, I increased my speed once more, despite the fact that my body started screaming obscenities at me.**

"You really are crazy," mused Christian.

"You have no idea," she responded.

**We finished the twelve laps, and when he checked, he found we'd shaved two minutes off my best time.**

"**Not bad, huh?" I crowed when we headed back inside for cool-down stretches. "Looks like I could get as far as the Limited before the Strigoi got me at the mall. Not sure how Lissa would do."**

"**If she was with you, she'd be okay."**

"Awe teacher student bonding time," Vikktoria giggled.

**I looked up in surprise. It was the first real compliment he'd paid me since I started training with him. His brown eyes watched me, both approving and amused.**

**And that's when it happened.**

Everyone was at the edge of their seat.

"I tripped!" Christian 'read'.

"Kidding," he muttered.

**I felt like someone had shot me.**

**Sharp and biting, terror exploded in my body and in my head. Small razors of pain. My vision blurred, and for a moment, I wasn't standing there. I was running down a flight of stairs, scared and desperate, needing to get out of there, needing to find…me.**

**My vision cleared, leaving me back on the track and out of Lissa's head. Without a word to Dimitri, I tore off, running as fast as I could toward the Moroi dorm. It didn't matter that I'd just put my legs through a mini-marathon. They ran hard and fast, like they were shiny and new.**

A few people raised an eyebrow.

"So what? My mind works different. Sue me," she said shrugging.

**Distantly, I was aware of Dimitri catching up to me, asking me what was wrong. But I couldn't answer him. I had one task and one alone: get to the dorm.**

"What's in the room?" Christian asked.

"Not you," Rose joked.

**Its looming, ivy-colored form was just coming into view when Lissa met up with us, her face streaked with tears.**

**I came to a jarring stop, my lungs ready to burst.**

"**What's wrong? What happened?" I demanded, clutching her arms, forcing her to look into my eyes.**

**But she couldn't answer. She just flung her arms around me, sobbing into my chest. I held her there, stoking her sleek, silky hair while I told her it was going to be all right–whatever 'it' was. **

"You'd be a great mother," Sydney observed.

The room went quiet and Jill gave her a pointed look.

"You're a great mother!" she corrected.

"Its fine, really," Rose said, awkwardly.

"So I'll read!" Alissa said, clearing the air.

"Yup, you do that," Jill told her.

**And honestly, I didn't care what it was just then. She was here, and she was safe, which was all that mattered. Dimitri hovered over us, alert and ready for any threat, his body coiled to attack. I felt safe with him beside us. **

**A half hour later, we were crammed inside Lissa's dorm room with three other guardians, Ms. Kirova, and the hall matron. This was the first time I'd seen Lissa's room. Natalie had indeed managed to get her as a roommate, and the two sides of the room were a study in contrasts. Natalie's looked lived in, with pictures on the wall and a frilly bedspread that wasn't dorm-issue. Lissa had as few possessions as I did, making her half noticeable bare. She did have one picture taped to the wall, a picture taken from last Halloween, when we'd dressed up like fairies, complete with wings and glittery makeup. **

"I'd pay to see that!" David exclaimed.

"I could show it to you!" Lissa answered.

Great...

Just great.

**Seeing that picture and remembering how things used to be made a dull pain form in my chest.**

"I wish we could go back," it came from both Lissa and Rose. Rose looked away and Lissa looked happy.

**With all the excitement, no one seemed to remember that I wasn't supposed to be in there.**

**Outside in the hall, other Moroi girls crowded together, trying to figure out what was going on. Natalie pushed her way through them, wondering what the commotion in her room was. When she discovered it, she came to a screeching halt.**

**Shock and disgust showed on almost everyone's faces as we stared at Lissa's bed. There was a fox on the pillow. It's coat was reddish-orange, tinged in white. It looked so soft that it could have been a pet, perhaps a cat, something you'd hold in your arms and snuggle with.**

"What's wrong with that?" Mikhail frowned, like others who didn't know.

**Aside from the fact that its throat had been slit.**

"Oh," was said all around the room. Lissa buried her face in Christian's chest.

**The inside of the throat looked pink and jellylike.**

"Did you have to describe it?" Alissa yelled.

Rose laughed, "I'm a guardian. I'm required to observe this stuff, it's not like I knew my thoughts were going to be read out loud."

Her voice held distaste and David put a comforting hand on her thigh.

**Nausea built up in my stomach, but I forced myself to keep looking. I couldn't afford to be squeamish. I'd be killing Strigoi someday. If I couldn't handle a fox, I'd never survive major kills.**

"That's different though," Dimitri told her.

**What had happened to the fox was sick and twisted, obviously done by someone too fucked up for words.**

"You can say that again," Maddie whispered, disgusted.

**Lissa stared at it, her face death-pale, and took a few steps toward it, hand involuntarily reaching out. This gross act hit her hard, I knew, digging at her love of animals. She loved them, they loved her. While on our own, she'd often begged me for a pet, but I'd always refused and reminded her we couldn't take care of one when we might have to flee at a moment's notice. Plus, they hated me. **

Christian along with others, snorted.

"No surprise there," Maddie said, she got elbowed by Adrian.

"Great, my brother's taking her side," she muttered to herself.

Rose giggled.

"Someone's going crazy," she sing songed.

**So she'd contented herself with helping and patching up strays she found and making friends with other people's pets, like Oscar the cat.**

**She couldn't patch up this fox, though. There was no coming back for it, but I saw in her face she wanted to help it, like she helped everything. I took her hand and steered her away, suddenly recalling a conversation from two years ago.**

"_**What is that? Is it a crow?"**_

"_**Too big. It's a raven."**_

"_**Is it dead?"**_

"_**Yeah. Definitely dead. Don't touch it."**_

Recognition and understanding flashed through Sonya Karp's eyes.

She knew what this was about, and shivered involuntarily.

**She hadn't listened to me back then. I hoped she would now.**

"**It was still alive when I got back," Lissa whispered to me, clutching my arm. "Barely. Oh God, it was twitching. It must have suffered so much."**

**I felt bile rise in my throat now. Under no circumstances would I throw up. "Did you–?"**

"**No. I wanted to….I started to…."**

"**Then forget about it," I said sharply. "It's stupid. Somebody's stupid joke. They'll clean it up. Probably even give you a new room if you want."**

**She turned to me, eyes almost wild. "Rose…do you remember…that one time…."**

"**Stop it," I said. "Forget about it. This isn't the same thing."**

"**What if someone saw? What if someone knows?..."**

**I tightened my grip on her arm, digging my nails in to get her attention. She flinched.**

"Was that necessary?" Christian asked, trying to protect Lissa.

I rolled my eyes.

"You do realize this happened years ago, but yes it was."

"**No. It's not the same. It has nothing to do with that. Do you hear me?" I could feel both Natalie and Dimitri's eyes on us. "It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay."**

**Not looking like she believed me at all, Lissa nodded.**

Lissa looked sheepishly at her.

"**Get this cleaned up," Kirova snapped to the matron. "And find out if anyone saw anything."**

**Someone finally realized I was there and ordered Dimitri to take me away, no matter how much I begged them to let me stay with Lissa. He walked me back to the novices' dorm. He didn't speak until we were almost there. "You know something. Something about what happened. Is this what you meant when you told Headmistress Kirova that Lissa was in danger?"**

"Took you long enough," Rose mumbled.

"**I don't know anything. It's just some sick joke."**

"**Do you have any idea who'd do it? Or why?"**

"Victor Dashkov."

Rose had been so naive.

"Don't beat yourself over it," she heard Dimitri whisper. Why was she an open book to him?

**I considered this. Before we'd left, it could have been any number of people. That was the way it was when you were popular. People loved you, people hated you. But now? Lissa had faded off to a certain extent. The only person who really and truly despised her was Mia, but Mia seemed to fight her battles with words, not actions. **

"Why am I not surprised I'm your main suspect?" Mia wondered.

"You were our only enemy, that we knew of," Lissa pointed out.

**And even if she did decide to do something more aggressive, why do this? She didn't seem like the type. There were a million other ways to get back at a person.**

"**No," I told him. "No clue."**

"Liar!" Maddie half whispered, half yelled. Rose decided to ignore her this time.

"**Rose, if you know something, tell me. We're on the same side. We both want to protect her. This is serious."**

**I spun around, taking my anger over the fox out on him.**

"I can't believe you did that," Rose glared at her mother.

**"Yeah, it **_**is **_**serious. It's all serious. And you have me doing laps every day when I should be learning how to fight and defend her! If you want to help her, then teach me something! **_**Teach me how to fight.**_** I already know how to run away."**

"True," Lissa said.

**I didn't realize until that moment how badly I did want to learn, how I wanted to prove myself to him, to Lissa, and to everyone else. The fox incident had made me feel powerless, and I didn't like that. I wanted to do something, **_**anything**_**.**

"Or anyone," Adrian muttered. Rose elbowed him.

**Dimitri watched my outburst calmly, with no change in his expression. When I finished, he simply beckoned me forward like I hadn't said anything.**

**"Come on. You're late for practice."**

"Wow you tolerate a lot Belikov. I can't believe you let her talk to you like that," Alberta spoke, surprised.

He only shrugged.

"it was expected."

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to Adrian.

"You should go feed her, she'll be hungry," by 'her' meaning her daughter.

He nodded and got up,leaving her alone with the wolves... and the rest.

There was an awkward silence.

"How could you?" Vikktoria whispered, crying.

"Do what?" Rose was confused and Dimitri wanted earth to swallow him.

"Not want my brother back after he turned strigoi?"

What?


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

RPOV:

I stared at her.

"What did you say?" I asked. I was glaring at her now. She only looked at her family, then at Dimitri.

I then turned to Dimitri.

"Bastard! I didn't want you?" I was shocked and disgusted? He didn't answer though. For the first time I found him speechless.

"'Love fades. Mine has' does that sound familiar?" I asked him. I was in front of his face now. I jabbed my finger at his chest.

"God damn it Dimitri. I never cared that you were strigoi, or what you did to me or others! I told you that wasn't you! And damn you, there's only so much I can forgive!" I was sweating and feeling light headed.

"haven't you already hurt me enough?" I asked in a tiny voice.

"I'm sorry! I just, felt ashamed," he admitted.

"That won't cut it this time."

I walked away, wobbling a little. I was a little light headed, I felt Adrian follow me. He was always there.

.

.

.

3rd POV

They all returned the next day, the Belikov's wanting to apologize, but Adrian not letting them. Rose felt weaker than usual, yesterday had been a lot. This whole thing was a lot.

Adrian was worried and he knew something needed to be done. But for the mean while they decided to read. Adrian and Rose had a whole couch for them selves, she was laying down, her head on his lap.

"**Chapter Eight**," Sonya Karp begun reading. Everyone was there, Dimitri was in a corner away from everybody. Not even Tasha was with him. She decided to give up on him.

He had a daughter, and obviously didn't love her. That was why she had been so silent.

**Burning with anger, I fought harder and better that day than I ever had in any of my classes with the novices. So much so that I finally won my first hand-to-hand pairing, annihilating Shane Reyes. We'd always gotten along, and he took it good-naturedly, applauding my performance, as did a few others.**

"**The comeback's starting," observed Mason after class.**

"**So it would seem."**

**He gently touched my arm. "How's Lissa?"**

**It didn't surprise me the he knew. Gossip spread so fast around here sometimes, if felt like everyone had a psychic bond.**

"**Okay. Coping." I didn't elaborate on how I knew that. Our bond was a secret from the student body.**

"**Mase, you claim to know about Mia. You think she might have done that?"**

"What is he? An expert on me?" Mia asked, in disbelief. Rose managed to chuckle, without having a coughing fit.

"**Whoa, hey, I'm not an expert on her or anything. But honestly? No. Mia won't even do dissections in biology. I can't picture her actually catching a fox, let alone, um, killing it."**

"**Any friends who might do it for her?"**

"For that I would have needed friends," Mia said, frowning a bit.

**He shook his head. "Not really. They're not really the types to get their hands dirty either. But who knows?"**

"Hey!" she yelled.

"Hush Mia," Adrian said, playing with Rose's hair.

**Lissa was still shaken when I met her for lunch later, her mood made worse when Natalie and her crew wouldn't shut up about the fox. Apparently Natalie had overcome her disgust enough to enjoy the attention the spectacle had brought her. Maybe she wasn't as content with her fringe status as I'd always believed.**

"**And it was just **_**there**_**," she explained, waving her hands for emphasis. "Right in the middle of the bed. There was blood **_**everywhere**_**."**

**Lissa looked as green as the sweater she wore, and I pulled her away before I even finished my food **

"That's serious," Maddie tried cheering her up.

**and immediately launched into a string of obscenities about Natalie's social skills.**

"**She's nice," Lissa said automatically. "You were just telling me the other day how much you liked her."**

"**I do like her, but she's just incompetent about certain things."**

**Wes stood outside our animal behavior class, and I noticed people giving us curious looks and whispering as they passed. I sighed.**

"**How are you doing with all this?"**

"Can't you already feel it?" asked Abe. He'd been really quiet, thinking up a plan.

Rose shrugged and Sonya Karp laughed.

**A half-smile crossed her face. "Can't you already feel it?"**

They understood why now.

"**Yeah, but I want to hear it from you."**

"**I don't know. I'll be okay. I wish everyone wouldn't keep staring at me like I'm some kind of freak."**

**My anger exploded again. The fox was bad. People upsetting her made it worse, but at least I could do something about them. "Who's bothering you?"**

"Rose is going to do some serious beating, won't you Rose?" he asked. Rose coughed.

"Hell yeah!" but her voice was missing that Rose Hathaway attitude.

"**Rose, you can't beat up everyone we have a problem with."**

"Sure I can!" exclaimed Rose, sitting up.

"I'm sure you can," Adrian said, putting a hand on her shoulder, bringing her back down.

"**Mia?" I guessed.**

"**And others," she said evasively. "Look, it doesn't matter. What I want to know is how this could have…that is, I can't stop thinking about that time-"**

"What time?" Sydney wanted to know.

"Don't get your panties in a hose, or whatever. I'm sure it'll be in the book."

"**Don't," I warned.**

"**Why do you keep pretending that didn't happen? You of all people. You made fun of Natalie for going on and on, but it's not like you've got a good grip on your control switch. You'll normally talk about anything."**

That wasn't so true anymore. There were things she wanted to forget, leave in the past.

"**But not **_**that**_**. We need to forget about it. It was a long time ago. We don't even really know what happened."**

**She stared at me with those big green eyes, calculating her next argument.**

"**Hey, Rose."**

**Our conversation dropped as Jesse strolled up to us. I turned on my best smile.**

"**Hey."**

**He nodded cordially to Lissa. "So hey, I'm going to be in your dorm tonight for a study group. You think…maybe…"**

**Momentarily forgetting Lissa,**

"Thanks," Lissa muttered, sarcastically.

"Hey! I needed some me time too!" Rose argued.

Lissa laughed a little, "I know."

**I focused my full attention on Jesse. Suddenly, I **_**so**_** needed to do something wild and bad. Too much had happened today. "Sure."**

**He told me when he'd be there, and I told him I'd meet him in one of the common areas with "further instructions."**

Janine groaned, imagining what was going to happen, and Abe growled.

**Lissa stared at me when he left. "You're under house arrest. They won't let you hang out and talk to him."**

"**I don't really want to 'talk' to him. We'll slip away."**

**She groaned. "I just don't know about you sometimes."**

"**That's because you're the cautious one, and I'm the reckless one."**

"I hope it stays that way," Janine told Lissa, who only nodded. Sometimes she wanted to be more like Rose.

Rose was strong, beautiful, strong-willed, a fighter, everything a good Dragomir should have.

**Once animal behavior started, I pondered the likelihood of Mia being responsible. From the smug look on her psycho-angel face,**

Mia choked a little on her saliva.

"Goodness Gracious Rose!" she yelled in indignation.

"I'm only saying it or thinking it, how I saw it," Rose shrugged with a smug smile on her face.

**she certainly seemed to be enjoying the sensation caused by the bloody fox. But that didn't mean she was the culprit, and after observing her over the last couple of weeks, I knew she'd enjoy anything that upset Lissa and me. She didn't need to be the one who had done it.**

"**Wolves, like many other species, differentiate their packs into alpha males and alpha females whom the others defer to. Alphas are almost always the strongest physically, though many times, confrontations turn out to be more a matter of willpower and personality. When an alpha is challenged and replaced, that wolf may find himself ostracized from the group or even attacked."**

**I looked up from my daydreams and focused on Ms. Meissner.**

"**Most challenges are likely to occur during mating season," she continued. This, naturally, brought snickers from the class.**

"**In most packs, the alpha pair are the **_**only**_** ones who mate. If the alpha male is an older, seasoned wolf, a younger competitor may think he has a shot. **

Rose immediately thought of Adrian and Dimitri. Looking at them both.

"You are not comparing me to wolves!" Adrian exclaimed.

Rose giggled.

"Nobody said I was!" she answered.

"Uh huh. I know that look, I am nothing like an animal," he said.

"Whatever you say, dream boy."

**Whether that is true works on a case-by-case basis. The young often don't realize how seriously outclassed they are by the more experienced."**

Rose gave him a pointed look, which he tried to ignore.

"Awe. Don't worry, we both lost," she said.

"That makes me feel better!" Alissa gave her a boyfriend a look that shut him up.

**The old-and-young-wolf thing notwithstanding, I thought the rest was pretty relevant. Certainly in the Academy's social structure, I decided bitterly, there seemed to be a lot of alphas and challenges Mia raised her hand. "What about foxes? Do **_**they**_** have alphas too?"**

"Did she really just go there?" Vikktoria asked, surprised.

Rose nodded, "Sadly yes. She went there."

"How'd you become friends?" she wondered. Rose thought back to Spokane, and all who had been there shivered.

"Long story."

**There was a collective intake of breath from the class, followed by a few nervous giggles. No one could believe Mia had gone there.**

**Ms. Meissner flushed with what I suspected was anger. "We're discussing wolves today, Miss Rinaldi."**

**Mia didn't seem to mind the subtle chastising, and when the class paired off to work on an assignment, she spent more time looking over at us and giggling. Through the bond, I could feel Lissa growing more and more upset as images of the fox kept flashing through her mind.**

"**Don't worry," I told her. "I've got a way-"**

"**Hey, Lissa," someone interrupted.**

**We both looked up as Ralf Sarcozy stopped by our desks. He wore his trademark stupid grin, and I had a feeling he'd come over here on a dare from his friends.**

"**So, admit it," he said. "You killed the fox. You're trying to convince Kirova you're crazy so that you can get out of here again."**

"**Screw you," I told him in a low voice.**

"**Are you offering?"**

"**From what I've heard, there isn't much to screw," I shot back.**

"That's my girl!" Adrian shout out.

"**Wow," he said mockingly. "You **_**have**_** changed. Last I remembered, you weren't too picky about who you got naked with."**

"**And last **_**I**_** remember, the only people you ever saw naked were on the Internet."**

Christian snickered.

Vikktoria looked impressed.

**He cocked his head in an overly dramatic fashion. "Hey, I just got it: it was you, wasn't it?" He looked at Lissa, then back at me. "She got you to kill the fox, didn't she? She weird kind of lesbian voo–ahhh!"**

**Ralf burst into flames.**

"How?" Olena asked. I gave Christian a look, who smirked.

**I jumped up and pushed Lissa out of the way–not easy to do, since we were sitting at our desks. We both ended up on the floor as screams–Ralf's in particular–filled the classroom and Ms. Meissner sprinted for the fire extinguisher.**

**And then, just like that, the flames disappeared.**

**Ralf was still screaming and patting himself down, but he didn't have a single singe mark on him. The only indication of what had happened was the lingering smell of smoke in the air.**

**For several seconds, the entire classroom froze. Then, slowly, everyone put the pieces together. Moroi magical specializations were well known, and after scanning the room, I deduced three fire users: Ralf, his friend Jacob, and–**

**Christian Ozera.**

There were gasps all around the room.

"Oh c'mon! Its no bid deal," Rose told everybody.

**Since neither Jacob nor Ralf would have set Ralf on fire, it sort of made the culprit obvious. The fact that Christian was laughing hysterically sort of gave it away too.**

**Ms. Meissner changed from red to deep purple**

"Is that even possible?" Sydney asked her.

"I saw it with my own eyes. It's very much possible," Rose wobbled her head up and down.

"**Mr. Ozera!" she screamed. "Hare dare you–do you have any idea–report to Headmistress Kirova's office now!"**

**Christian, completely unfazed, stood up and slung his backpack over one shoulder. That smirk stayed on his face. "Sure thing, Ms. Meissner."**

**He went out of his way to walk past Ralf, who quickly back away as he passed. The rest of the class stared, open-mouthed.**

**After that, Ms. Meissner attempted to return the class to normal,but it was a lost cause. No one could stop talking about what had happened. It was shocking on a few different levels. First, no one had ever seen that kind of spell: a massive fire that didn't actually burn it was a lost cause. No one could stop talking about what had happened. It was shocking on a few different levels. First, no one had ever seen that kind of spell: a massive fire that didn't actually burn anything.**

**Finally, craziest of all, **_**Christian**_** had done it. Christian, whom no one ever noticed or gave a damn about.**

**Well, they'd noticed him now.**

"Yes!" he yelled, excited.

**It appeared someone still knew offensive spells after all, and as much as I enjoyed the look of terror on Ralf's face,it suddenly occurred to me that Christian might really and truly be a psycho.**

"**Liss," I said as we walked out of class, "please tell me you haven't hung out with him again."**

**The guilt that flickered through the bond told me more than any explanation could.**

"**Liss!" I grabbed her arm.**

"**Not that much," she said uneasily. "He's really okay-"**

"**Okay? **_**Okay?**_**" People in the hall stared at us. I realized I was practically shouting. "He's out of his mind. **_**He set Ralf on fire.**_** I thought we decided you weren't going to see him anymore."**

"**You decided, Rose. Not me." There was an edge in her voice I hadn't heard in a while.**

"Awe. That's my girl standing up for us!" he told her.

"There was no 'us'," Rose reminded him, making him a tad bit sad.

"**What's going on here? Are you guys…you know?..."**

**"No!" she insisted. "I told you that already. God." She shot me a look of disgust. "Not everybody thinks–and acts–like you."**

"Ooooooh dissss!" a few of them yelled. She rolled her eyes.

Some adults looked at her in surprise and shock.

**I flinched at her words. Then we noticed that Mia was passing by. She hadn't heard the conversation but had caught the tone. A snide smile spread over her face. "Trouble in paradise?"**

"**Go find your pacifier, and shut the hell up,"**

"You're best one yet!" Eddie said.

"Wow. You were pissed!" Maddie told her.

David spoke,"Oh Rose."

**I told her, not waiting to hear her response. Her mouth dropped open, then tightened into a scowl.**

**Lissa and I walked on in silence, and then Lissa burst out laughing. Like that, our fight diffused.**

"That's nice," Oksana spoke.

"**Rose…" Her tone was softer now.**

"**Lissa, he's dangerous. I don't like him. Please be careful."**

**She touched my arm. "I am. I'm the cautious one, remember? You're the reckless one."**

**I hoped that was still true.**

Lissa nodded.

**But later, after school, I had my doubts. I was in my room doing homework**

Eddie raised an eyebrow.

"What happened?"

She laughed.

"Nothing. Life, I guess."

**when I felt a trickle of what could only be called sneakiness coming from Lissa. Losing track of my work, I stared off into space, trying to get a more detailed understanding of what was happening to her. If ever there was a time for me to slip into her mind, it was now, but I didn't know how to control that.**

"Please don't tell me you're going to what I think you are!" Lissa pleaded.

"Oops," was her answer.

**Frowning, I tried to think what normally made that connection to occur. Usually she was experiencing some strong emotion, an emotion so powerful it tried to blast into my mind. I had to work hard to fight against that; I always sort of kept a mental wall up.**

**Focusing on her now, I tried to remove the wall. I steadied my breathing and cleared my mind. **

**My thoughts didn't matter, only hers did. I needed to open myself to her and let us connect.**

Mark was now really paying attention.

"Yeah, that's how it works."

**I'd never done anything like this before; I didn't have the patience for meditation.**

"Of course not," her mom mumbled.

**My need was so strong, however, that I forced myself into an intense, focused relaxation. I needed to know what was going on with her, and after a few more moments, my effort paid off.**

**I was in.**

"That was the end," Sonya Karp told everyone.

There was a moment of silence in which Rose was pensive. Why would Dimitri do that? Had it no been enough what he had done to her?

Could she forgive him now? Her mind swirled and she sighed, tired.

"Who's reading next?" Sonya's voice brought her back.

"I will," David answered. The book was passed to him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

"**Chapter Nine**" David began reading.

**I snapped into her mind, once again seeing and directly experiencing what went on around her.**

**She was sneaking into the chapel's attic again, confirming my worst fears. Like last time, she met no resistance. **_**Good God**_**, I thought, **_**could that priest be any worse about securing his own chapel?**_

Sydney narrowed her eyes at me, "Somebody might want to pray late at night."

**Sunrise lit up the stained-glass window, and Christian's silhouette was framed against it: he was sitting in the window seat.**

"**You're late," he told her. "Been waiting a while."**

"You guys set up a time?" Eddie asked. Lissa blushed while Christian shrugged.

**Lissa pulled up one of the rickety chairs, brushing dust off it. "I figured you'd be tied up with Headmistress Kirova."**

**He shook his head. "Not much to it. They suspended me for a week, that's all. Not like it's hard to sneak out." He waved his hands around. "As you can see."**

"**I'm surprised you didn't get more time."**

**A patch of sunlight lit up his crystal-blue eyes. "Disappointed?"**

**She looked shocked. "You set someone on fire!"**

"**No, I didn't. Did you see any burns on him?"**

"**He was covered in flames."**

"**I had them under control. I kept them off of him."**

**She sighed. "You shouldn't have done that."**

**Straightening out of his lounging position, he sat up and leaned toward her. "I did it for you."**

"Nice way to get a girl Christian. Just set someone on fire for them," I spoke from my spot on the couch, my voice was sarcastic.

"**You attacked someone for me?"**

"**Sure. He was giving you and Rose a hard time. She was doing an okay job against him, I guess, but I figured she could use the backup. Besides, this'll shut anyone else up about the whole fox thing, too."**

"**You shouldn't have done that," she repeated, looking away. She didn't know how to feel about this "generosity." "And don't act like it was all for me. You **_**liked**_** doing it.**

"I bet he did," Adrian muttered, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Rose elbowed him.

"Hey! What was that for?" he complained.

She shrugged.

"Being the old you?" she made it sound like a question.

He smirked.

"You love me," he said.

Rose rolled her eyes.

**Part of you wanted to–just because."**

**Christian's smug expression dropped, replaced by one of uncharacteristic surprise. Lissa might not be psychic, but she had a startling ability to read people.**

**Seeing him off guard, she continued. "Attacking someone else with magic is forbidden–and that's **_**exactly**_** why you wanted to do it. You got a thrill out of it."**

**"Those rules are stupid. If we used magic as a weapon instead of just for warm and fuzzy shit, Strigoi wouldn't keep killing so many of us."**

"**It's wrong," she said firmly. "Magic is a gift. It's peaceful."**

"**Only because they say it is. You're repeating the party line we've been fed our whole lives." He stood up and paced the small space of the attic. "It wasn't always that way, you know. We use to fight, right along with the guardians–centuries ago. Then people started getting scared and stopped. Figured it was safe to just hide. They forgot the attack spells."**

"**Then how did you know that one?"**

**He crooked her a smile. "Not everyone forgot."**

"**Like your family? Like your parents?"**

"You went the wrong way," Rose said.

**The smile disappeared. "You don't know anything about my parents."**

Tasha's eyes darkened.

"I do now," Lissa said.

**His face darkened, his eyes grew hard. To most people, he might have appeared scary and intimidating, but as Lissa studied and admired his features, he suddenly seemed very, very vulnerable.**

"**You're right," she admitted softly, after a moment. "I don't. I'm sorry."**

**For the second time in this meeting, Christian looked astonished. Probably no one apologized to him that often. Hell, no one even talked to him that often. Certainly no one ever listened. Like usual, he quickly turned into his cocky self.**

"**Forget it." Abruptly, he stopped pacing and knelt in front of her so they could look each other in the eye. Feeling him so close made her hold her breath. A dangerous smile curled his lips. "And really, I don't get why **_**you**_** of all people should act so outraged that I used 'forbidden' magic."**

"**Me 'of all people'? What's that supposed to mean?"**

"**You can play all innocent if you want–and you do a pretty good job–**

**but I know the truth."**

"**What truth is that?" She couldn't hide her uneasiness from me or Christian.**

**He leaned even closer. "That you use compulsion. All the time."**

"Busted!" Eddie sing-songed.

"**No, I don't," she said immediately.**

"**Of course you do. I've been lying awake at night, trying to figure out how in the world you two were able to rent out a place and go to high school without anyone ever wanting to meet your parents. Then I figured it out. You had to be using compulsion.**

**That's probably how you broke out of here in the first place."**

"**I see. You just figured it out. Without any proof."**

"**I've got all the proof I need, just from watching you."**

"Stalker much?" Rose told him.

"**You've been watching me–spying on me–to prove I'm using compulsion?"**

**He shrugged. "No. Actually, I've been watching you just because I like it. The compulsion thing was a bonus. I saw you use it the other day to get an extension on that math assignment.**

**And you used it on Ms. Carmack when she wanted to make you go through more testing."**

"**So you assume it's compulsion? Maybe I'm just really good at convincing people." There was a defiant note in her voice: understandable, considering her fear and anger. Only she delivered it with a toss of her hair which–if I didn't know any better–might have been considered flirtatious. And I did know better…right? Suddenly, I wasn't sure.**

**He went on, but something in his eyes told h he'd noticed the hair, that he always noticed everything about her. "People get these goofy looks on their faces when you talk to them. And just any people–you're able to do it to Moroi. Probably dhampirs, too.**

**Now that's crazy. I didn't even know that was possible. You're some kind of superstar. Some kind of evil, compulsion-abusing superstar."**

Everyone started laughing. Lissa, evil? Impossible.

**It was an accusation, but his tone and presence radiated the same flirtatiousness she had.**

Rose made gagging noises at Christian. He threw a pillow at her, which, with amazing reflexes, Adrian caught.

"Watch in, man," he warned Christian.

"You never let me have any fun," she complained.

**Lissa didn't know what to say. He was right. Everything he'd said was right. Her compulsion was what had allowed us to dodge authority and get along in the world without adult help. It was what had allowed us to convince the bank to let her tap into her inheritance.**

"No wonder," Alberta muttered. Everything was now making sense.

**And it was considered every bit as wrong as using magic as a weapon. Why not? It**_**was**_** a weapon. A powerful one, one that could be abused very easily. Moroi children had it drilled into them from an early age that compulsion was very, very wrong. No one was taught to use it, though every Moroi technically had the ability.**

**Lissa had just sort of stumbled into it–deeply–**

**and, as Christian had pointed out, she could wield it over Moroi, as well as humans and dhampirs.**

"Extraordinary," Abe whispered. Rose rolled her eyes at him.

"**What are you going to do then?" she asked. "You going to turn me in?"**

**He shook his head and smiled. "No. I think it's hot."**

"Ewww!"

**She stared, eyes widening and heart racing. Something about the shape of his lips intrigued her.**

"**Rose thinks you're dangerous," she blurted out nervously. "She thinks you might have killed the fox."**

**I didn't know how I felt about being dragged into this bizarre conversation. Some people were scare of me. Maybe he was too.**

**Judging from the amusement in his voice when he spoke, it appeared he wasn't. "People think I'm unstable, but I tell you, Rose is ten times worse.**

"Hey! I don't like being associated with you," she told him.

"Its a compliment!"

**Of course, that makes it harder for people to fuck with **_**you**_**, so I'm all for it."**

"That's true," both Eddie and Mia said.

**Leaning back on his heels, he finally broke the intimate space between them. "And I sure as hell didn't do **_**that**_**. Find out who did, though…and what I did to Ralf won't seem like anything."**

**His gallant offer of creepy vengeance didn't exactly reassure Lissa…but it did thrill her a little. "I don't want you doing anything like that. And I still don't know who did it."**

**He leaned back toward her and caught her wrists in his hands. He stared to say something, then stopped and looked down in surprise, running his thumbs over faint, barely there scars. Looking back up at her, he had a strange–for him–kindness in his face.**

"**You might not know who did it. But you know something. Something you aren't talking about."**

Everyone, but me and Lissa, nodded.

**She stared at him, a swirl of emotions playing in her chest. "You can't know all my secrets," she murmured.**

**He glanced back down at her wrists and the released them, that dry smile back on his face. "No. I guess not."**

**A feeling on peace settled over her, a feeling I thought only I could bring.**

"Oooooh. Jealous?" Rose glared at him. She had been after all...

**Returning to my own head and my room, I sat on the floor staring at my math book. Then, for reason I didn't really get, I slammed it shut and threw it against the wall.**

"Ever thought you're bipolar?" Maddie asked her.

"NO, cause it was the shadow-kiss effects, right?" she a=said, turning her head to Sonya Karp. Mark, and Oksana.

All three of them nodded.

**I spent the rest of the night brooding until the time I was supposed to meet Jesse came around.**

**Slipping downstairs, I went into the kitchen–**

**a place I could visit as long as I kept things brief–and caught his eye when I cut through the main visiting area.**

**Moving past him, I paused and whispered, "There's a lounge on the fourth floor that nobody uses. Take the stairs on the other side of the bathrooms and meet me there in five minutes. The lock on the door is broken."**

**He complied to the second, and we found the lounge dark, dusty, and deserted. The drop in guardian numbers over the years meant a lot of the dorm stayed empty, a sad sign for Moroi society but terrible convenient right now.**

**He sat down on the couch, and I lay back on it, putting my feet in his lap. I was still annoyed after Lissa and Christian's bizarre attic romance**

**and wanted nothing more than to forget about it for a while.**

"**You really here to study, or was it just an excuse?" I asked.**

"**No. It was real. Had to do an assignment with Meredith." The tone in his voice indicated he wasn't happy about that.**

"**Oooh," I teased. "Is working with a dhampir beneath your royal blood? Should I be offended?"**

"Yes," the dhampirs spoke.

**He smiled, showing a mouth full of perfect white teeth and fangs. "You're a lot hotter than she is."**

"Thanks," her tone held bitterness and sarcasm.

"**Glad I make the cut." There was a sort of heat in his eyes that was turning me on, as was his hand sliding up my leg.**

There were growls in the room, but Rose didn't bother looking up.

**But I needed to do something first. It was time for some vengeance. "Mia must too, since you guys let her hang out with you. She's not royal."**

**His finger playfully poked me in the calf. "She's with Aaron. And I've got lots of friends who aren't royal. And friends who are dhamps.**

Eddie narrowed his eyes.

"I hate that."

**I'm not a total asshole."**

"At least he knows he's partially one," Mia muttered.

"**Yeah, but did you know her parents are practically custodians for the Drozdovs?"**

Mia sighed.

"When is this going to finish?"

**The hand on my leg stopped.**

"Of course."

**I'd exaggerated, but he was a sucker for gossip–and he was notorious for spreading it.**

"**Seriously?"**

"**Yeah. Scrubbing floors and stuff like that."**

Mia rolled her eyes.

"**Huh."**

**I could see the wheels turning in his dark blue eyes and had to hide a smile. The seed was planted.**

**Sitting up, I moved closer to him and draped a leg over his lap. I wrapped my arms around him, and without further delay, thoughts of Mia disappeared as his testosterone kicked in. He kissed me eagerly–sloppily, even–**

"Eww," Mia said making a face.

"You should know," Rose told her, giving her a pointed look.

**pushing me against the back of the couch, and I relaxed into what had to be the first enjoyable physical activity I'd had in weeks.**

**We kissed like that for a long time, and I didn't stop him when he pulled off my shirt.**

**"I'm not having sex," I warned between kisses.**

"Good," her father said. He wanted to kill anyone who ever touched her.

**I had no intention of losing my virginity on a couch in a lounge.**

"I still can't believe you were a virgin."

**He paused, thinking about this, and finally decided not to push it. "Okay."**

**But he pushed me onto the couch, lying over me, still kissing with that same fierceness. His lips traveled down to my neck, and when the sharp points of his fangs brushed against my skin, I couldn't help an excited gasp.**

"Nice going."

Rose glared at Eddie.

**He raised himself up, looking into my face with open surprise. For a moment, I could barely breathe, recalling that rush of pleasure that a vampire bite could fill me with, wondering what it'd be like to feel that while making out. Then the old taboos kicked in. Even if we didn't have sex, giving blood while we did **_**this**_** was still wrong, still dirty.**

"**Don't," I warned.**

"Too late."

"**You want to." His voice help excited wonder. "I can tell."**

"**No, I don't."**

**His eyes lit up. "You do. How–hey, have you done it before?"**

"**No," I scoffed. "Of course not."**

**Those gorgeous blue eyes watched me,and I could see the wheels spinning behind them. Jesse might flirt a lot and have a big mouth, but he wasn't stupid.**

"**You act like you have. You got excited when I was by your neck."**

"**You're a good kisser," I countered, though it wasn't entirely true. He drooled a little more than I would have preferred.**

**"Don't you think everyone would know if I was giving blood?"**

**The realization seized him. "Unless you weren't doing it before you left. You did it while you were gone, didn't you? You fed Lissa."**

"**Of course not," I repeated.**

**But he was on to something, and he knew it. "It was the only way. You didn't have feeders. Oh, man."**

"**She found some," I lied. It was the same line we'd fed Natalie, the only one she'd spread around and that no one–except Christian–**

**had ever questioned. "Plenty of humans are into it."**

"**Sure," he said with a smile. He leaned his mouth back to my neck.**

"**I'm not a blood whore," I snapped, pulling away from him.**

"**But you **_**want**_** to. You like it. All you dhamp girls do."**

**His teeth were on my skin again. Sharp. Wonderful.**

"I'll kill him!"

A few guys agreed with Abe.

**I had a feeling hostility would only make things worse, so I defused the situation with teasing. "Stop it," I said gently, running a fingertip over his lips. "I told you, I'm not like that. But if you want something to do with your mouth, I can give you some ideas."**

**That peaked his interest. "Yeah? Like wha-?"**

**And that was when the door opened.**

"Thank god!"

"Amen!"

"Hallelujah!"

Was heard around the whole room.

**We sprang apart. I was ready to handle a fellow student or even possibly the matron. What I was not ready for was Dimitri.**

"Ha ha!"

**He burst in the door like he'd expected to find us, and in that horrible moment, with him raging like a storm, I knew why Mason had called him a god. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the room and jerked Jesse up by his shirt, nearly holding the Moroi off the ground.**

"**What's your name?" barked Dimitri.**

"That must have been funny," Sonya, Dimitri's sister said.

"Nah. It was scary."

"**J-Jesse, sir. Jesse Zeklos, sir."**

"**Mr. Zeklos, do you have permission to be in this part of the dorm?"**

"**No, sir."**

"**Do you know the rules about male and female interactions around here?"**

"**Yes, sir."**

**"Then I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can before I turn you over to someone who will punish you accordingly.**

**If I ever see you like this again"–Dimitri pointed to where I cowered, half-dressed, on the couch–**

"Why haven't you put on your shirt?" Alberta, Janine, and Abe asked.

"I was afraid!"

_**I**_** will be the one to punish you. And it will hurt. A lot. Do you understand?"**

**Jesse swallowed, eye wide. None of his bravado he usually showed was there. I guess there was "usually" and then there was being held in the grip of a really ripped, really tall, and really pissed-off Russian guy.**

"**Yes, sir!"**

"**Then **_**go**_**." Dimitri released him, and, if possible, Jesse got out of there faster than Dimitri had burst in. My mentor then turned to me, a dangerous glint in his eyes. He didn't say anything, but the angry, disapproving message came through loud and clear.**

**And then it shifted.**

"Goodness gracious!" my mother exclaimed.

"I'm sorry! I regret it okay?" time seemed to stop as Rose raised her head and stared at Dimitri.

"No, not like that. I swear, I don't regret us," his voice, frantic to her ears.

"David, read."

**It was almost like he'd been taken by surprise, like he'd never noticed me before. Had it been any other guy, I would have said he was checking me out. As it was, he was definitely studying me.**

"Isn't that the same thing?" Mikhail asked.

"No. Studying is more... serious? Intense?"

**Studying my face, my body. And I suddenly realized I was only in jeans and a bra–a black bra at that. I knew perfectly well that there weren't a lot of girls at this school who looked as good in a bra as I did. Even a guy like Dimitri, one who seemed so focused on duty and training and all of that, had appreciate that.**

"You have a big ego," Christian told her.

**And, finally, I noticed that a hot flash was spreading over me, and that the look in his eyes was doing more to me than Jesse's kisses had. Dimitri was quiet and distant sometimes, but he also had a dedication and an intensity that I'd never seen in any other person. I wondered how that kind of power and strength translated into…well, sex.**

**I wondered what it'd be like for him to touch me and–shit!**

**What was I thinking? Was I out of my mind?**

"Yes!" her parents yelled.

**Embarrassed, I covered my feelings with attitude.**

"**You see something you like?" I asked.**

Everyone rolled their eyes.

"**Get dressed."**

**The set of his mouth hardened, and whatever he'd just felt was gone. That fierceness sobered me up and made me forget about my own troubling reaction. I immediately pulled my shirt back on,**

"Thank you," Abe said.

**uneasy at seeing his badass side.**

"**How'd you find me? You following me to make sure I don't run away?"**

"**Be quiet," he snapped, leaning down so that we were at eye level. "A janitor saw you and reported it. Do you have any idea how stupid this was?"**

"**I know, I know, the whole probation thing, right?"**

"**Not just that. I'm talking about the stupidity of getting in **_**that**_** kind of situation in the first place."**

**"I get in **_**that**_** kind of situation all the time, Comrade. It's not a big deal."**

**Anger replaced my fear. I didn't like being treated like a child.**

"**Stop calling me that. You don't even know what you're talking about."**

"**Sure I do. I had to do a report on Russia and the R.S.S.R. last year."**

"Wow."

"_**U**_**.S.S.R. And it **_**is**_** a big deal for Moroi to be with a dhampir girl. They like to brag."**

"**So?"**

"_**So?**_**" he looked disgusted. "So don't you have any respect? Think about Lissa. You make yourself look cheap.**

"My daughter is not cheap!" Abe's voice filled the room, making almost everyone cringe.

"I know."

**You live up to what a lot of people already think about dhampir girls, and it reflects back on her. And me."**

"**Oh, I see. Is that what this is about? Am I hurting your big, bad male pride? Are you afraid I'll ruin your reputation?"**

"His reputation has already been made," Alberta's voice was soft.

"**My reputation is already made, Rose. I set my standards and lived up to them long ago. What you do with yours remains to be seen." His voice hardened again. "Now get back to your room–if you can manage it without throwing yourself at someone else."**

**"Is that your subtle way of calling me a slut?"**

"No. You're not a whore," Dimitri spoke, wanting Rose to believe him. Yet he himself didn't believe in them anymore.

And it hurt.

**Ouch.**

**I wanted to yell back that it was none of his business what I did with my body, but something about the anger and disappointment on his face made me falter. I didn't know what it was. "Disappointing" someone like Kirova was a nonevent, but Dimitri?...I remembered how proud I'd felt when he praised me the last few practices. Seeing that disappear from him…well, it suddenly made me feel as cheap as he'd implied I was.**

"You're not," Dimitri argued.

"Far from it."

Everybody tried not to acknowledge the tension.

**Something broke inside of me. Blinking back tears,**

"Tears?" Vikktoria asked.

Rose nodded, "His words had really affected me."

**I said, "Why is it so wrong to…I don't know, have fun? I'm seventeen, you know. I should be able to enjoy it."**

"**You're seventeen, and in less than a year, someone's life and death will be in your hands." His voice still sounded firm, but there was a gentleness there too. "If you were human or Moroi, you could have fun. You could do things other girls could."**

"**But you're saying I can't."**

**He glanced away, his dark eyes went unfocused. He was thinking about something far away from here. "When I was seventeen, I met Ivan weren't like you and Lissa, but we became friends, and he requested me as his guardian when I graduated. I was the top student in my school. I paid attention to everything in my classes,**

"How'd you tow even-? Never mind," Eddie slumped back.

**but in the end, it wasn't enough. That's how it is in the life. One slip, one distraction…" He sighed. "And it's too late."**

**A lump formed in my throat as I thought about one slip or one distraction costing Lissa her life.**

Both girls looked at each other, small smiles on their lips.

"**Jesse's a Zeklos," I said, suddenly realizing Dimitri had just thrown around a relative of his former friend and charge.**

"**I know."**

"**Does it bother you? Does he remind you of Ivan?"**

"**It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't matter how any of us feel."**

"**But it does bother you." It suddenly became very obvious to me. I could read his pain, though he clearly worked hard to hide it. "You hurt. Every day. Don't you? You miss him."**

He nodded.

It was amazing how much Rose had found out about him in one night.

**Dimitri looked surprised,like he didn't want me to know that,**

"I didn't," he admitted.

**I'd uncovered some secret part of him.**

"You had," he whispered.

**I'd been thinking he was some aloof, antisocial tough guy, but maybe he kept himself apart from other people so he wouldn't get hurt if he lost them.**

Rose looked around the room, looking for Dimitri, and when she found him, he was staring at her.

Maybe...

She cast the thoughts away.

**Ivan's death had clearly left a permanent mark.**

Dimitri bowed his head down, in respect for the dead man.

**I wondered if Dimitri was lonely.**

"Why would you wonder such things?" Janine's voice cut through Rose's thoughts.

**The surprised look vanished, and his standard serious one returned. "It doesn't matter how I feel. **_**They**_** come first. Protecting them."**

"I understand now," Rose spoke, her voice soft.

"Sometimes you learn that the hard way," Dimitri told her.

She only nodded.

**I thought about Lissa again. "Yeah. They do."**

**A long silence feel before he spoke again.**

"**You told me you want to fight, to **_**really**_** fight. Is that still true?"**

"**Yes. Absolutely."**

"**Rose…I can teach you, but I have to believe you're dedicated. Really dedicated. I can't have you distracted by things like this." He gestured around the lounge. "Can I trust you?"**

**Again, I felt like crying under that gaze,under the seriousness of what he asked. I didn't know how he could have such a powerful effect on me. I'd never cared so much about what one person thought. **

The adults, well everyone stared at them two.

How could they not have seen it?

They were perfect.

**"Yes. I promise."**

**"All right. I'll teach you, but I need you strong. I know you hate the running, but it really is necessary. You have no idea what Strigoi are like.**

"I do now," she chirped.

**The school tries to prepare you, but until you've seen how strong they are and how fast…well, you can't even imagine. So I can't stop the running and the conditioning. If you want to learn more about fighting, we need to add more trainings. It'll take up more of your time. You won't have much left for your homework or anything else. You'll be tired. A lot."**

**I thought about it, about him, and about Lissa. "It doesn't matter. If you tell me to do it, I'll do it."**

Even now, she would.

**He studied me hard, like he was still trying to decide if he could believe me. Finally satisfied, he gave me a sharp nod. "We'll start tomorrow."**

"Then end," David shut the book.

"What now?" he asked.

"Now, we go to sleep," Rose said getting up, with great effort.

David and Adrian helped her.

"I don't need your help," she mumbled, but she did.

Both men rolled their eyes.

They were walking, towards their rooms, when DImitri stepped out.

"Can we talk?"

Rose stared at the man in front of him, who seemed completely broken.

She decided to give him a chance.

The nod she gave him, gave hope.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey people once again this is ****'s**** work NOT mine.**

A few moments of silence passed by, in which Dimitri thought about what he was going to say.

He ran a hand through his hair.

"Are you going to say anything?" she asked him. He looked up.

"Right. I'm sorry,"he said.

A wave of exhaustion came over Rose.

God, she was so tired of hearing those words, but she knew it was the reason she was here, reading the stupid book.

To fix things.

She had so little time to fix everything, to get things in order before she... dies.

She wanted to forgive and forget so badly, but it was hard. She was and had been in so much pain.

It was easy for them to apologize, but hard for her to forgive and then forget.

Which is why what she said next surprise both of them.

"I forgive you."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing,it was like music to his ears.

"I'm not doing this for me or for you, but for my daughter,"she said.

Right.

Their daughter.

"If I," she couldn't bring herself to say the words, it was painful.

"If I die I want my daughter to have her father."

He nodded.

So she didn't want to get back with him.

That much was clear.

_I deserve it _he thought.

She turned around to go to her room.

"Do you need help?" he asked, noticing how weak she was.

How pale she was.

"It's getting worst," she said as he helped her.

He didn't know what to say.

So, he helped her to her room, where she laid down.

"Do you want me to get Adrian?"he asked her. He had accustomed with the fact that the only men in her life was Adrian and David.

"No! He needs alone time with Alissa, don't worry. I'll be fine."

He nodded but as he left her room he wondered if he would be okay.

.

.

.

Next day, they all came back to read the next chapter of the book. Rose was paler than usual but didn't let anyone say anything about it.

"Who's going to read?" she asked looking around the room.

"I will," her father volunteered.

She nodded and passed him the book.

"**Chapter Ten**." he started.

"**Excuse me, Mr. Nagy? I can't really concentrate with Lissa and Rose passing notes over there."**

"One name: Mia," Lissa said.

"Sorry," Mia apologized again.

"Its okay," both girls said together.

Rose stared at her friend.

Maybe it was time to apologize, and fix things.

**Mia was attempting to distract attention from herself–as well as her inability to answer Mr. Nagy's question–**

"Don't say anything," she warned everyone.

**and it was ruining what has otherwise been a promising day. A few of the fox rumors still circulated, but most people wanted to talk about Christian attacking Ralf. I still hadn't cleared Christian of the fox incident–I was pretty sure he was psycho enough to have done it as some crazy sign of affection for Lissa–but whatever his motives, he had shifted the attention off her, just as he'd said.**

**Mr. Nagy, legendary for his ability to humiliate students by reading notes aloud, homed in on us like a missile. He snatched the note away, and the excited class settled in for a full reading. I swallowed my groan, trying to look as blank and unconcerned as possible. Beside me, Lissa looked like she wanted to die.**

"Look at what our queen did while in school, passing notes. Shame on you," Adrian teased Lissa, making Rose giggle.

"**My, my," he said, looking the note over. "If only students would write this much in their essays. One of you has considerably worse writing than the other,**

"We all know who that is," Eddie teased Rose. She stuck her tongue out at him.

**so forgive me if I get anything wrong here." He cleared his throat. "'**_**So, I saw J last night**_**,' begins the person with bad handwriting, to which the response is, '**_**What happened**_**,' followed by no fewer than five question marks. Understandable, since sometimes one–let alone four–just won't the point across, eh?" The class laughed, and I noticed Mia throwing me a particularly mean smile. "The first speaker responds: '**_**What do you think happened? We hooked up in on of the empty lounges**_**.'"**

**Mr. Nagy glanced up after hearing some more giggles in the room. His British accent only added to the hilarity.**

"**May I assume by this reaction that the use of 'hook up' pertains to the more recent, shall we say, **_**carnal**_** application of the term than the tamer one I grew up with?"**

"**More snickers ensured. Straightening up, I said boldly, "Yes, sir, Mr. Nagy. That would be correct, sir."**

Everyone laughed at Rose.

"'Sir'?" Adrian asked her.

"I was hoping we wouldn't get in trouble."

**A number of people in the class laughed outright.**

"**Thank you for that confirmation, Miss Hathaway. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the other speaker than asks, '**_**How was it?**_**' The response is, '**_**Good**_**,' punctuated with a smiley face to confirm said adjective.**

**Well. I supposed kudos are in order for the mysterious J, hmmm? '**_**So, like, how far did you guys go?**_**' Uh, ladies," said Mr. Nagy, "I do hope this doesn't surpass a PG rating.'**

'_**Not very. We got caught.**_**' And again, we are shown the severity of the situation, this time through the use of a not-smiling face. '**_**What happened?**_**' '**_**Dimitri showed up. He threw Jesse out and then bitched me out.**_**'"**

**The class lost it, both from hearing Mr. Nagy say "bitched" and from finally getting some participants named.**

"**Why, Mr. Zeklos, are you the aforementioned J? The one who earned a smiley face from the sloppy writer?" Jesse's face turned beet red, but he didn't look entirely displeased at having his exploits made known in front of his friends.**

"Told ya,"Eddie said.

"Dimitri said that,"she answered.

He shrugged.

**He'd kept what had happened a secret thus far–including the blood talk–because I'd suspected Dimitri had scared the hell out of him. "Well, while I applaud a good misadventure as much as the next teacher whose time is utterly wasted, do remind your 'friends' in the future that my class is not a chat room." He tossed the paper back onto Lissa's desk. "Miss Hathaway, it seems there's no feasible way to punish you, since you're already maxed out on penalties around here.**

**Ergo, you, Miss Dragomir, will serve two detentions instead of one on behalf of your friend. Stay here when the bell rings, please."**

**After class, Jesse found me, an uneasy look on his face. "Hey, um, about that note…you know I didn't have anything to do with that. If Belikov finds out about it…you'll tell him? I mean, you'll let him know I didn't-"**

"**Yeah, yeah," I interrupted him. "Don't worry, you're safe."**

"Wuss."

**Standing with me, Lissa watched him walk out of the room. Thinking of how easily Dimitri had thrown him around–and of his apparent cowardice–I couldn't help but remark, "You know, Jesse's suddenly not as hot as I used to think."**

**She only laughed. "You'd better go. I've got desks to wash."**

**I left her, heading back for my dorm. As I did, I passed a number of students gathered in small clusters outside the building. I regarded them wistfully, wishing I had the free time to socialize.**

"**No, it's true," I heard a confident voice say. Camille Conta. Beautiful and popular, from one of the most prestigious families in the Conta clan. She and Lissa had sort of been friends before we left, in the uneasy way two powerful forces keep an eye on each other. "They, like, clean toilets or something."**

Mia frowned.

"Great."

"**Oh my God," her friend said. "I'd die if I was Mia."**

"Oh my god! Me too!" sarcasm filled Rose's voice.

**I smiled. Apparently Jesse had spread some of the stories I'd told him last night. Unfortunately, the next overheard conversation shattered my victory.**

"**-heard it was still **_**alive**_**. Like, twitching on her bed."**

"Gross!"

"**That is gross. Why would they just leave it there?"**

"**I don't know. Why kill it in the first place?"**

"**You think Ralf was right? That she and Rose did it to get kicked-"**

"Busted!"

"Eddie, shut up!"

**They saw me and shut up.**

**Scowling, I skulked off across the quadrangle. **_**Still alive, still alive**_**.**

**I'd refused to let Lissa talk about the similarities between the fox and what had happened two years ago.**

**I didn't want to believe they were connected, and I certainly didn't want her to either.**

**But I hadn't been able to stop thinking about that incident, not only because it was chilling, but because it really did remind me of what had just happened in her room.**

"Are we going to know now?"Christian asked.

**We had been out in the woods near campus one evening, having skipped out on our last class. I'd traded a pair of cute, rhinestone-studded sandals to Abby Badica for a bottle of peach schnapps–desperate, yes, but you did what you had to in Montana–which she'd somehow gotten hold of. Lissa had shaken her head in disapproval when I suggested cutting class to go put the bottle out of its misery, but she'd come along anyway. Like always.**

**We found an old log to sit on near a scummy green march. A half-moon cast a tiny sliver if light on us, but it was more than enough for vampires and half-vampires to see by. Passing the bottle back and forth, I grilled her on Aaron.**

**She'd fessed up that the two of them had had sex the weekend before, and I felt I surge of jealousy that she'd been the one of have sex first.**

**"So what was it like?"**

**She shrugged and took another drink. "I don't know. It wasn't anything."**

"**What do you mean it wasn't anything? Didn't the earth move or the planets align or something?"**

Adrian chuckled.

"Was it like that to you Little Dhampir?"

Rose blushed profusely, bright as a tomato.

Everyone laughed at her face, except her parents.

"**No," she said, smothering a laugh. "Of course not."**

**I didn't really get why that should be funny, but I could tell she didn't want to talk about it. This was around the time the bond had begun forming, and her emotions were starting to creep into me now and then. I held up the bottle and glared at it.**

"**I don't think this stuff is working."**

"**That's because there's barely any alcohol in-"**

"What happened?" Mia asked.

"Shush and we would find out," Christian told her.

**The sound of something moving in the brush came from nearby. I immediately shot up, putting my body between her and the noise.**

"**It's some animal," she said when a minute went by in silence.**

**That didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. The school's wards kept out Strigoi, but wild animals often wandered into the outskirts of campus, posing their own threats. Bears. Cougars.**

"**Come on," I told her. "Let's head back."**

**We hadn't gone far when I heard something moving again, and someone stepped out into our path. "Ladies."**

"Oh shit! Why do you always get busted?" Eddie wondered.

"Cause," Rose started.

"We don't know," Lissa finished.

"Exactly."

**Ms. Karp.**

Sonya looked at the girls, knowing what was going to happen. Mikhail put a comforting arm around her.

**We froze, and whatever quick reactions I'd shown back by the marsh disappeared as I delayed a few moments in hiding the bottle behind my back.**

**A half-smile crossed her face, and she held out her hand.**

**Sheepishly, I gave the bottle to her, and she tucked it under her arm. She turned without another word, and we followed, knowing there would be consequences to deal with.**

**"You think no one notices when half a class is gone?" she asked after a little while.**

"Half a class?" her mother asked.

**"Half a class?"**

"**A few of you apparently chose today to skip. Must be the nice weather. Spring fever."**

**Lissa and I trudged along. I'd never been comfortable around Ms. Karp since the time she'd healed my hands. Her weird, paranoid behavior had taken on a strange quality to me–a lot stranger than before. Scary, even. And lately I couldn't look at her without seeing those marks by her forehead.**

**Her deep red hair usually covered them but not always. Sometimes there were new marks; sometimes the old ones faded to nothing.**

**A weird fluttering noise sounded to my right. We all stopped.**

"**One of your classmates, I imagine," murmured Ms. Karp, turning toward the sound.**

**But when we reached the spot, we found a large black bird lying on the ground. Birds–and most animals–didn't do anything for me, but even I had to admire its sleek feathers and fierce beak. It could probably peck someone's eye out in thirty seconds–**

**if it weren't obviously dying. With a last, half-hearted shake, the bird finally went still.**

"**What is that? Is it a crow?" I asked.**

"Hey! That's the conversation you guys were having!" Vikktoria exclaimed.

"Yep."

"**Too big," said Ms. Karp. "It's a raven."**

"**Is it dead?" asked Lissa.**

**I peered at it. "Yeah. Definitely dead. Don't touch it."**

"**Probably attacked by another bird," observed Ms. Karp. "They fight over territory and resources sometimes."**

**Lissa knelt down, compassion on her face. I wasn't surprised, since she'd always had a thing for animals. She'd lectured me for days after I'd instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I'd viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She'd seen it as animal cruelty.**

**Transfixed, she reached toward the raven.**

"**Liss!" I exclaimed, horrified. "It's probably got a disease."**

**But her hand moved out like she hadn't even heard me. Ms. Karp stood there like a statue, her white face looking like a ghost's. Lissa fingers stroked the raven's wings.**

**Then the raven moved.**

"You healed it," Olena breathed.

Lissa nodded.

**Lissa gave a small scream and snatched her hand back. We both started wide-eyed.**

**The raven flapped his wings, slowly trying to right itself and stand up. When it managed to do so, it turned toward us, fixing Lissa with a look that seemed too intelligent for a bird. Its eyes held hers, and I couldn't read her reaction through the bond. At long last, the raven broke the gaze and lifted into the air, strong wings carrying it away.**

**Wind stirring the leaves was the only sound left.**

"**Oh my God," breathed Lissa. "What just happened?"**

"**Hell if I know," I said, hiding my stark terror.**

**Ms. Karp strode forward and grabbed Lissa's arm, forcefully turning her so that they faced each other. I was there in a flash, ready to take action if Crazy Karp tried anything, though even I had qualms about taking down a teacher.**

**"Nothing happened," said Ms. Karp in an urgent voice, her eyes wild-looking. "Do you hear me? Nothing. And you can't tell anyone–anyone–about what you saw.**

**Both of you. Promise me. Promise me you won't ever talk about this again."**

**Lissa and I exchanged uneasy glances. "Okay," she croaked out.**

**Ms. Karp's grip relaxed a little. "And don't ever do it again. If you do, they'll find you. They'll try to find you."**

"Who?" Jill asked.

Sonya shook her head, "I was crazy."

**She turned to me. "You can't let her do it. Not ever again."**

**On the quad, outside my dorm, someone was saying my name.**

"**Hey, Rose? I've called you, like, a hundred times."**

**I forgot about Ms. Karp and the raven and glanced over at Mason, who had apparently started walking with me toward the dorm while I was off in la-la land.**

"**Sorry," I mumbled. "I'm out of it. Just…um, tired."**

"**Too much excitement last night?"**

**I gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Nothing I couldn't handle."**

"**I guess," he laughed, though he didn't exactly sound amused.**

"**Sounds like Jesse couldn't handle it."**

"**He did okay."**

"**If you say so. But personally, I think you've got bad taste."**

**I stopped walking. "And **_**I**_** don't think it's any of your business."**

**He looked away angrily. "You made it the whole class's business."**

"Not her fault though,"Jill spoke.

"Thanks."

"**Hey, I didn't do that on purpose."**

"**Would've happened anyway. Jesse's got a big mouth."**

"**He wouldn't have told."**

"**Yeah," said Mason. "Because he's so cute and has such an important family."**

"**Stop being an idiot," I snapped. "And why do you even care? Jealous I'm not doing it with you?""**

"Yes!" almost everyone yelled.

**His flush grew, going all the way to the roots of his red hair. "I just don't like hearing people talk shit about you, that's all. There are a lot of nasty jokes going around. They're calling you a slut."**

"**I don't care what they call me."**

"**Oh, yeah. You're really tough. You don't need anyone."**

**I stopped. "I don't. I'm one of the best novices in the fucking place. I don't need you acting all gallant and coming to my defense. Don't treat me like I'm some helpless girl."**

**I turned around and kept walking, but he caught up to me easily. The woes of being five-seven.**

"**Look…I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just worried about you."**

**I gave a harsh laugh.**

**I'm serious. Wait…" he began. "I, uh, did something for you. I went to the library last night and tried to look up St. Vladimir."**

**I stopped again. "You did?"**

"**Yeah, but there wasn't much on Anna. All the books were kind of generic. Just talked about him healing people, bringing them back from the edge of death."**

**That last part hit a nerve.**

"**Was…was there anything else?" I stammered.**

**He shook his head. "No. You probably need some primary sources, but we don't have any here."**

"**Primary what?"**

They rolled their eyes.

"I know what is now!

**He scoffed, a smile breaking over his face. "Do you do anything but pass notes?**

"What do you think?"Alissa asked.

**We just talked about them the other day in Andrews' class. They're books from the actual time period you want to study. Secondary ones are written by people living today. You'll get better information if you find something written by the guy himself. Or someone who actually knew him."**

"**Huh. Okay. What are you, like, a boy genius now?"**

**Mason gave me a light punch in the arm. "I pay attention, that's all. You're so oblivious. You miss all sorts of things." He smiled nervously. "And look…I really am sorry about what I said. I was just-"**

"Jealous," Sydney supplied.

**Jealous,I realized. I could see it in his eyes. How had I never noticed this before? He was crazy about me. I guess I really was oblivious.**

"Finally,"Eddie muttered.

"**It's all right, Mase. Forget about it." I smiled. "And thanks for looking that stuff up."**

**He smiled back, and I went inside, sad that I didn't feel the same way about him.**

Eddie was looking away from her.

It still pained her, thinking about Mason.

Abe cleared his throat.

"Who's next?"

"I say Christian should read!" Rose exclaimed.

"Fine," he complied, bitterly.

Rose laughed.

"In your face!"she yelled, for some unknown reason.


	12. AN

**Authors note: (I am very sorry about this)**

**So I have two stories right now still not completed and I really do want to finish this one (and I don't mean to make excuses) but I need to finish Bella's Back before I continue with this story Bella's Back should not take much longer its just school is back and I don't have a lot of time to get on my -very very very- slow laptop but I swear I will finish these stories.**


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